
ffass ?.T 

Book . 



Copyright N°. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 




Moses on Mt. Nrbo. 



{Frontis, "The New Theology. 



"THE NEW THEOLOGY" 

By a Methodist Layman 



BY 

HAMILTON WHITE, 
it 

Chicago, Illinois 




BROADWAY PUBLISHING CO. 

NEW YORK, BALTIMORE ATLANTA 
I9IO 



*$ 



Copyright, 1910, 

By 

HAMILTON WHITE. 



&CU 278511 









^ 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

7 
56 
69 

III 
130 
I40 



God and Creation 

Good and Evil 

Theology 

Religion 

The Holy Spirit . 

What Did Jesus Say — 

About the Church? 

About the Kingdom of Heaven? 

About the Fatherhood of God and the 
Brotherhood of Man? 

About Teaching? 

About Heaven? 

About Hell? 

About Sin and Holiness? 

About Sanctification? 

About Consecration? 

About Revivals? 

About Evangelists? 

About the Plan of Salvation? 

About the Covenant or Covenants? 

The Bible 174 

Life 182 

Church 190 

Truth Versus Falsehood . .199 



To the Laymen of the M. E. Church. 

The thought that I should, or would 
write a book, never occurred to me until I 
was in my seventy-fifth year. When the 
thought came to me I said, No, I could not 
write a hook; I never wrote even a mag- 
azine article; never wrote hut three or four 
addresses that I ever delivered. I was 
more of an extemporaneous speaker and 
had a dislike for writing. But the thought 
kept coming to me, day after day, week 
after week. Finally the thought came to me 
in this form: t( Freely ye have received, 
freely give. Give to others the thoughts 
that have been given to you n — and I finally 
decided that I would seek the best conscious- 
ness of the help of the Spirit of Truth, who 
has promised to lead us into all Truth, and 
through this help I would give to others the 
Truth, as it has been given to me. With my 
best consciousness of this help, I have written 
this book and send it out to the world, espe- 
cially to the Laymen of the M. E. Church 

5. 



and to the Laymen of the various Protestant 
Churches, trusting that it may bring to them 
the help and consciousness of the Truth that 
makes us free. I fully realize that the Spirit 
of Truth even cannot lead any one who is 
unwilling to he led. He cannot lead anyone 
into the Truth, who has not the capacity to 
receive the Truth, hut he can lead, and direct 
and help, and abide with the honest Truth- 
seeker, who is willing and anxious to do the 
will of our Heavenly Father. 

I trust that this little book will not be 
considered from a literary standpoint. I 
have no literary talent or ambition in that 
direction, and now apologize in advance to 
my literary friends for the bungling manner 
in which these thoughts have been thrown 
together. But I trust that they may go out 
to the world in the interest of Truth, even 
after I am gone, as I am now on borrowed 
time, having passed the three-score and ten 
by six years. I am quite conscious of my 
inability to express clearly the thoughts that 
come to me, along the lines of the New 
Theology, in this age when there is such a 
determined effort to put new wine into old 
wine-skins. 

6 



GOD AND CREATION 



It has been said that an honest man is 
the noblest work of God. It has also been 
said that an honest God is the noblest work 
of man. Some one has said that in the 
beginning God created man in his own 
image, and that man has ever since been 
returning the compliment, by creating God 
in his image. 

It is true that no two men have ever seen 
the same rainbow; because they see it from 
different standpoints. In this sense, no two 
men have ever seen the same God; and yet, 
both have seen the rainbow and the God. 
In the beginning man's conception of God 
must necessarily have been very limited; as 
much as a new born baby's conception would 
be of its own parents. And there is no way 

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C&e iQeto Cfteologp 



to help this, except by growth. There is 
no revelation that can come in here. In 
either case there is no capacity to receive 
revelation or knowledge, except by growth. 
We must grow into the knowledge of our 
own being. We must grow into the knowl- 
edge of God. There is no other way. God 
cannot reveal Himself to us any differently 
than he has done. God is infinite; we are 
finite. The finite will never be able to fully 
comprehend the infinite. We are children 
of God, heirs of God, and joint heirs with 
our elder brother, Jesus Christ. "We don't 
know what we shall be" — we have not the 
capacity now to comprehend; but "we shall 
be like Him," because we shall grow into 
His image, and see Him as he is. This is 
the assurance of our divinity. When shall 
we see Him as he is? When our capacities 
are enlarged, and when our knowledge of 
the Father and the Son is increased, and we 
grow into the knowledge of God. 

This lack of capacity and knowledge will 

account for the various conceptions of God, 

that men have had, from the days of Adam, 

or the creation, up to the present time. Ac- 

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cording to the Mosaic account of the crea- 
tion, we have had six thousand years of 
growth in the knowledge of our God. We 
don't know anything about the capacity or 
advantage of God's children in what is called 
the Heathen world, or what He requires of 
them, or what He has in store for them, or 
of the various conceptions He has given 
them of Himself, in all the ages, or whether 
they are sufficiently advanced, or evoluted, 
to receive the higher and better conceptions 
of Himself. The best conception of God 
that we can get, then, is when we see Jesus— 
"He that hath seen me, hath seen the 
Father." 

Moses gives two separate accounts of the 
creation of the world, and of man (Genesis, 
1:1-31, and Genesis, 2:1-25). There is 
some discrepancy between these two ac- 
counts. The first tells us that the man and 
the woman were created together, after the 
animals were created. The second account 
informs us that God created Adam first, and 
then the animals, and last of all the woman* 
We shall not attempt a discussion of these 
two accounts of the creation, or the various 



€f)e H9eto Cfieologp 



other accounts, that the ancient nations, or 
religions, of the world give us. It appears 
that nearly all the ancient religions of the 
world have their own account, of the crea- 
tion of the universe and of man. Some of 
these different accounts concur in some 
points with the Mosaic account. This would 
indicate that they all got their information 
from the meager tradition they had, and 
gave their best conception of the creation at 
that time. It would take a much larger 
book than we intend to write to discuss the 
various accounts of creation by these various 
authors. It is claimed by Moses, and all 
the others, that they wrote by inspiration of 
God. We shall not deny this, but rather 
grant it. But what we say about Moses, 
and inspiration, may be applied to all the 
other claimants. They simply gave their 
best conceptions of the creation at that time, 
with the best light they had, with the best 
conceptions they had of the help of inspira- 
tion — that they were led and guided by their, 
best conceptions of their God. 

What we wish now to inquire after, are 
the best conceptions of God that we have 
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Cfte iQeto C&eologg 



been able to get, from Adam up to the pres- 
ent time, according to the Mosaic account. 
Well, you say, God has given us a perfect 
revelation of Himself and of what He re- 
quires of us. This could not possibly be 
true. God cannot reveal Himself to us, dif- 
ferently from what He has done. God can- 
not give us an infallible rule of faith and 
practice, and we remain human. But, you 
say, we limit the Almighty. No, he limits 
Himself. There are some things God can- 
not do. The Book says it is impossible for 
Him to lie. That would be a contradiction. 
God cannot create anything out of nothing; 
that would be a contradiction. God cannot 
do wrong. God is love. He cannot hate. 
God is just; He cannot be unjust. God 
cannot give us an infallible rule of faith and 
practice, and then require us to advance. 
He gave the beaver an infallible rule of 
faith and practice, in the beginning, and he 
builds the same house that he built in the 
beginning. He gave the birds of the air 
an infallible rule of faith and practice, and 
they build the same nests, and migrate from 
north to south, and from south to north, as 
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C&e lOeto C&eologp 



they did six thousand years ago. No ad- 
vancement. But with humanity, with God's 
own children, it is different. They have to 
learn to advance through their mistakes. 
They have mind, and reason, and these God- 
given gifts have to be used, must be exer- 
cised, or there is no advancement. The best 
conception of God, ever given to the world, 
was given to us by Jesus Christ, when he 
said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father." Just in proportion as we can see 
the Christ, the Son, we can see the Father, 
God. Just in proportion as we can see good, 
innocence, purity, sinlessness, we are able to 
see God, our Heavenly Father. 

Moses has been considered the author of 
the Pentateuch, by both Jews and Christians, 
up to a very recent period. The discoveries 
of Science, and the critical study of the 
various languages in which the Pentateuch' 
and the various other books of the Bible 
were written, have put the authorship of 
many of the books of Bible in doubt. But, 
for my purpose now, it is immaterial whether 
they were written by Moses, or someone 
else in that age, or whether the Jewish, or 
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Cfte iQeto Cfieologp 



Samaritan copy of the Pentateuch was the 
genuine; or whether the various sacred 
writings, from which the Bible was made up, 
were of equal claim to inspiration or not, 
is immaterial. The account of the creation 
of the world and the creation of man, sup- 
posed to have been written some three thou- 
sand years after the creation — with nothing 
to guide except a very unreliable tradition — 
has given rise to many other accounts of 
the creation of the world and of man; all 
claiming divine inspiration. We don't pro- 
pose to discuss the genuineness of any of 
these accounts of the creation, or of the 
books of the Bible, or of the various claims 
to inspiration by the various authors. 

Moses was an educated man, learned in 
all the wisdom of the Egyptians. No doubt, 
he gave his very best conception of the crea- 
tion of the world, and of man, with all the 
help he could get from tradition and inspira- 
tion. But we must not forget that inspira- 
tion never yet made any man infallible. We 
have no time or space here to discuss the 
various theories of inspiration. The greatest 
religious frauds in the world have all claimed 

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inspiration. We will admit that when God's 
spirit bears witness with your spirit that you 
are His child; that is inspiration, but it does 
not make you infallible. We will admit that 
Moses was inspired. But he was not in- 
fallible. In his work, as God's chosen 
leader, to lead the children of Israel out of 
bondage, he was sorely tried and vexed, and 
made many blunders — sufficient to prevent 
him from ever reaching the Promised Land. 
Moses had to adapt his language to the 
capacity of this ignorant people. He was 
compelled to use language to convince them 
that he was God's spokesman to them, and 
that God would be very angry with them 
if they failed to obey Him and carry out the 
commands of Moses. He had to govern 
them through fear, and this gave them a 
very low conception of God. "Fear is the 
beginning of wisdom," and Moses appealed 
to that faculty in their nature. They were 
not "able to bear," or to receive any higher 
conceptions of God at that time than Moses 
gave them. Moses, in his record of the 
experiences of the Children of Israel, makes 
Jacob say (Gen., 32-30), "I have seen God 

14. 



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face to face." In Numbers 14-14 Moses 
tells the Lord that the Egyptians had "heard 
that thou, Lord, are among this people, and 
that thou, Lord, art seen face to face," and 
in Exodus, 33-1 1, he says that the u Lord 
spake to Moses face to face." The Isra- 
elites, believing that God was in human 
form, could understand that Moses was on 
very intimate terms with God, and that they 
should obey the commands of Moses. But, 
with Moses's better conception of God, he 
makes God say (Ex., 33-20), "Thou canst 
not see my face, for then shall no man see 
me and live." And in this record we get 
Moses's best conception of God. I don't 
think the Children of Israel at that time 
could comprehend this personal experience 
of Moses: "While my glory passes by, I 
will put thee in a clift of the rock and will 
cover thee with my hand while I pass by, 
and I will take away my hand and thou shalt 
see my back parts, but my face shall not be 
seen." Moses, in his experience, was able 
to see the back parts, the past, of God's 
dealings with him — how he had been led in 
the past (about all that God ever allows us 

15 



Cfie H3eto C&eologg 



to see) ; but His face, the future, he could 
not see. He would hide him in the clift of 
the rock, while His glory was passing; while 
his trials were on, which caused him to cry 
out to God to come to his help, in bearing 
the burdens of the people, or kill him, and 
relieve him from the great burden — greater, 
he said, than he could bear. But God had 
His hand over him, in the clift of the rock, 
while His glory was passing — this wonder- 
ful deliverance of this people from their 
bondage. And Moses was able to see the 
hinder parts, the past — but he could not see 
His face, the future. It would have been 
a sad sight for Moses if God at this time 
had shown His face, the future — that Moses 
would never be allowed to enter the Prom- 
ised Land. This, we think, was the best 
conception ever Moses got of God. It is 
among the better conceptions of God that 
we get. We, too, have been in the clift of 
the rock, and unable to see His face, while 
His glory was passing, with his hand over 
us — and we could only see His hinder parts, 
the past. Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof. If God was to reveal to us that 
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Cfie H3eto Cfieologg 



six months hence we should suffer martyr- 
dom, or we should have some great sorrow, 
we would not be able to bear it. But, while 
we see the past, we cannot see the future. 
We could not see the future and live. No 
man can see God's face and live on this 
earth. When we are perfected we can see 
God. We can partially see Him through 
a clean heart. We can see Him better as 
we are able to see the Christ. "He that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father." 

We admit that Moses and the prophets 
were inspired, also that Paul and the other 
apostles were inspired, and that all the teach- 
ers and seers, from the days of Enoch up 
to the present time, who have walked with 
God and come into close communion with 
Him, were inspired. 

Peter said: "Of a truth I perceive God 
is no respector of persons; but in every 
nation he that feareth Him and worketh 
righteousness is accepted of Him." No 
respector of persons. Every nation. Not 
the Hebrews only, but all the nations that 
fear God and work righteousness can have 
His spirit, His help, His inspiration. Excuse 

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C6e JSeto CDeologp 



the expression — but no one can "get a cor- 
ner" on God's spirit. The greatest religious 
frauds in the world have tried it — but only 
to prove to the world that they were frauds, 
claiming infallibility of their teachers. I 
was taught when in college to believe in 
verbal inspiration of the Scriptures. Few 
believe in it now. I was taught to believe 
in an infallible book — Bible. Not many in- 
telligent people believe it now. Our Roman 
Catholic brethren believe in an infallible 
Church, an infallible Pope — an infallible 
Church, officered, directed, controlled by 
fallible men. 

It is not our purpose here to discuss the 
various theories of inspiration and infal- 
libility. We leave that to the Catholic and 
Protestant theological professors and to the 
professors and teachers in the various other 
religions. They all claim inspiration for 
their various systems of religion, and their 
discussions of the same are very voluminous. 
God is no respector of persons. Every man 
or woman who feareth or loveth God, and 
worketh righteousness, is accepted of Him 
and is entitled to the help of His spirit 

i a 



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But God has never given His spirit, or 
his help, to any man or woman, so as to 
make them infallible. Moses was inspired, 
and had the spirit of God to guide him, to 
help him — just as any one has who seeks 
to do the will of his Heavenly Father; but 
Moses was not infallible. And he could not 
write an infallible book. Moses, the man 
chosen of God, appointed of God to lead 
the Children of Israel out of bondage; 
Moses, the man given the spirit of God — 
listen to what he says, Numbers, 11:11-17: 

"And Moses said unto the Lord, Where- 
fore hast thou afflicted thy servant? and 
wherefore have I not found favour in thy 
sight, that thou layest the burden of all this 
people upon me?" Moses scolding God. 

"Have I conceived all this people? Have 
I begotten them, that thou shouldest say 
unto me, Carry them in thy bosom, as nurs- 
ing father beareth the suckling child, unto 
the land which thou swearest unto their 
fathers? 

"Whence should I have flesh to give unto 
all this people? For they weep unto me, 
saying, Give us flesh, that we may eat. 

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"I am not able to bear all this people 
alone, because it is too heavy for me. 

"And if thou deal thus with me, kill me, 
I pray thee, out of hand, if I have found 
favour in thy sight; and let me not see my 
wretchedness. 

"And the Lord said unto Moses, Gather 
unto me seventy men of the elders of Israel, 
whom thou knowest to be the elders of the 
people, and officers over them, and bring 
them unto the tabernacle of the congrega- 
tion, that they may stand there with thee. 

"And I will come down and talk with thee 
there; and I will take of the spirit which is 
upon thee, and will put it upon them; and 
they shall bear the burden of the people with 
thee, that thou bear it not thyself alone." 

Why, Moses, with all the inspiration that 
God ever gave him, or ever gave to any one 
else, got to where so many of God's people 
get, when they are struggling, with the help 
of His spirit, to do the best they can with 
the work given them, or the burden laid upon 
them; they are willing to give up, willing 
to die. Moses, the inspired man, willing to 
die! Asking God to kill him! But God 
20 



€i>e I3eto C&eolog? 



never fails to come to our help in such ex- 
tremities. He came to Moses' help. The 
seventy men upon whom God put his spirit, 
and put them to work to help Moses bear 
the burden, were inspired — but were not 
infallible. Elijah was an inspired man, but 
he got discouraged — got under the juniper 
tree, and wanted to die ; and he was not the 
only one of God's tired, discouraged chil- 
den that got under the juniper tree, in their 
discouragement, and want to quit. But the 
help always comes under such circumstances. 
On another occasion Moses' father-in-law, 
Jethro, made him a visit, and found him 
struggling with the people, not knowing just 
what to do (Numbers, 11:1-23). Jethro 
was a son of Abraham, by his concubine 
wife, Keturah. On this occasion Jethro 
found that the people were wearing Moses 
out; they kept him from morning until eve- 
ning, judging the people, settling their dif- 
ficulties. Jethro solved the difficulties with- 
out any inspiration, as it were. He said to 
Moses, his son in law: "What is this thing 
that thou doest to the people? Why sittest 
thou alone, and all the people stand by thee 
21 



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from morning until evening ? The thing that 
thou doest is not good. Thou wilt surely 
wear away both thee and the people that 
is with thee, for this thing is too heavy for 
thee; thou art not able to perform it, thy- 
self alone." 

We think this about the best advice, and 
best help, that Moses received in his dif- 
ficult work with this people, although Jethro 
did not give it by inspiration. Moses evi- 
dently used his best judgment in leading the 
children of Israel out of their slavery and 
fitting them to be free men. Abraham Lin- 
coln used his best judgment in leading the 
black men out of slavery in our own country 
in the '6o's, and leaned very hard on the 
help of the Almighty, trusting to the Spirit 
of God — the spirit of Goodness, the spirit 
of Philanthropy, the spirit of Love, the 
spirit of Kindness, the spirit of Truth, the 
spirit that is now leading this Nation unto 
all Truth — the Truth that makes us free — 
the Truth in Science, in Literature, in Com- 
merce, in Inventions — the spirit of Truth, 
given to lead us, as a nation, as a people, 
into all Truth. 

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Moses was a great man, a great law-giver, 
a man of wonderful executive ability. But 
he grew into it by his experience, with this 
ignorant and almost ungovernable people — 
just out of slavery, and, of course, he had 
to adapt his language and his teaching to 
their capacities. Their conceptions of God 
were very low. And Moses, in his teaching 
them, had to use language in agreement with 
their capacities. He had to convince them 
that he was on very intimate terms with God, 
that he had talked with God face to face, 
met him on the mountain top, and received 
the Law written on two tables of stone, and 
that God would be very angry with them if 
they failed to obey His commands. Moses 
had for this people a God of Vengeance — ■ 
a God who would protect them from their 
enemies, a God who would curse their 
enemies for them. Moses was a great man, 
a scholar educated as the son of Pharaoh's 
daughter; educated in all the learning and 
wisdom of the Egyptians. He was not only 
a judge, a jurist, but a man of wonderful 
executive ability; a general, a military man, 
who by his strategy, his diplomacy delivered 

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the children of Israel out of bondage, over 
three million men, women and children; over 
six hundred thousand men over twenty years 
of age able for war, besides women and 
children. He was too much for Pharaoh. 
With his superior wisdom, with his keen 
diplomacy he led them forth, with their 
flocks and herds, instructing them not to go 
out empty-handed, but to "borrow" of the 
Egyptians jewels of silver and jewels of gold 
and raiment, and thus, with his great army 
of men and women, he marches them out 
of, over from under the power of Pharaoh 
with their flocks and herds, without the 
drawing of a sword or the firing of a gun. 
The most unique deliverance of a people out 
of slavery that the world has ever witnessed. 
But now that they are delivered, that they 
are out of Egypt, that they are across the 
Red Sea, in the wilderness, safe from the 
power of Pharaoh, Moses now finds himself 
up against a proposition that few men would 
dare face. He is now in the wilderness with 
this great army, with over three million 
mouths to feed, with no commissary, with no 
means of support, except their meager flocks 

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and herds, and with what little forage that 
could be found in the wilderness. With an 
almost ungovernable, ignorant people, just 
out of slavery, with an unusual amount of 
kickers that such a people under such con- 
ditions could furnish. But Moses was equal 
to the task. He trusted in the God of the 
Hebrews. He made them realize that he 
was God's chosen leader, to lead them not 
only out of bondage, but to lead them into 
the promised land. He gave them the best 
conception of God that they "were able to 
bear." He taught them that he could talk 
face to face with the God of Israel. He 
took "Aaron, Nodab and Abihu," and sev- 
enty of the Elders to witness his going up 
into the mountain to talk with God (Ex., 
24:1-2). He dso arranged that the entire 
camp, the people of Israel, should witness 
his going up into the mountain to talk with 
God, and to receive the law to govern this 
people from the hand of God (Ex., 19: 
16-18). "And it came to pass on the third 
day in the morning that there was thunder 
and lightning, and a thick cloud upon the 
Mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceed- 

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C8e ifteto etieologg 



ing loud, so that all the people that were in 
the camp trembled, and Moses brought forth 
the people out of the camp to meet with 
God, and they stood at the nether part of 
the mount. And Mount Sinai was altogether 
in a smoke, because the Lord descended upon 
it in fire, and the smoke thereof ascended 
as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole 
mount quaked greatly." And the light of 
the glory of the Lord was like a devouring 
fire on the top of the mountain, in the eyes 
of the children of Israel — a good oriental 
description of a great thunderstorm. "And 
Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and 
got him up into the mount; and Moses was 
in the mount forty days and forty nights." 
Here Moses was, away from the noise of 
the camp, from the annoyances of the camp, 
for forty days and forty nights. He was 
alone, in the solitude of the mountain, with 
his God, with his best conceptions of his 
God, and of the help he would give Him. 
He was at work on the ten commandments, 
and on the laws for the government of this 
people. He evidently prepared the two 
tables of stone, and wrote the ten command- 
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Cfte iQeto C&eologg 



ments under the best inspiration he could 
get in the quiet and solitude of the mountain. 
Now his work is completed. He is ready 
to return to the camp to his supposedly wait- 
ing people. But what about the camp? This 
restless people, who had thus been miracu- 
lously led into the wilderness. They had 
seen Moses go up into the mount, in the 
midst of that terrific thunderstorm. They 
had seen the mountain, as it were, on fire. 
They had trembled in fear at the noise of 
the thunder, and the lightnings. They evi- 
dently felt concerned as to what would be- 
come of Moses. Ten days passed and no 
word from Moses. Twenty days passed and 
the people begin to fear that Moses must 
evidently have perished in the storm. Thirty 
days have passed and they have given up 
all hope of ever seeing Moses again. They 
go to Aaron with this conviction. "And 
when the people saw that Moses delayed to 
come down out of the mount, the people 
gathered themselves together unto Aaron 
and said unto him, Make us gods which shall 
go before us, for as for this Moses, the 
man that brought us out of the land of 

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Egypt, we wot not what has become of him." 
And Aaron told them to break off their 
golden earrings and bring them to him, and 
he would make them Gods to go in and out 
before them. Aaron was not much better 
than the rest of them. And when Aaron 
had received of them their gold earrings and 
melted them, he "fashioned it with a graven 
tool, after he had made it a molten calf, and 
they said, 'These be thy gods, O Israel, 
which brought thee up out of the land of 
Egypt.' " And when Aaron saw it he built 
an altar before it, and Aaron made a pro- 
clamation and said: "To-morrow is a feast 
to the Lord." Now in the midst of this 
feast Moses appears; the military dictator. 
He comes with the confidence that now with 
the two tables of stone, with the ten com- 
mandments written, as he said, by the finger 
of God, he would be able to govern this 
ignorant and rebellious people. But to his 
disappointment, as he nears the camp, he 
hears the voice of song and revelry. He 
sees his people naked, in their revelry, and 
dancing, and debauchery. Aaron, knowing 
the uncontrollable anger of his brother at 
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certain times, said: "Let not the anger of 
my Lord wax hot. Thou knowest the people 
that they are set on mischief." Then he 
apologizes to Moses for his part in making 
the Golden Calf, issuing the proclamation 
for a feast, and thus helping to bring about 
this disgraceful scene. But "Moses' anger 
waxed hot." Moses worshipped a God whose 
"wrath waxed hot," and as he came in 
sight of the Golden Calf, and realized that 
this people had actually been worshipping 
this idol, this god, the work of Aaron's 
hands, a people that he had left only forty 
days ago, left them in their fear and trem- 
bling at the sight of the God of Israel in 
the mount. Then, as his anger continued to 
wax hot, and he fully took in the situation 
as came into the presence of this people, 
he takes the two tables of stone that he 
had prepared to show the people that the 
writing "was the writing of God," that they 
were "written by the finger of God, and as 
his anger waxed hot he cast the tables of 
stone out of his hands and brake them be- 
neath the mount" (Ex., 23 : I 5"35)« And 
he took the golden calf which they had made 
29 



Cfte lOeto Cfieologp 



and burnt it in the fire and ground it to pow- 
der and strewed it upon the water and made 
the children of Israel drink of it. But he 
did not stop with that. His anger continued 
to wax hot, "and he stood in the gate of 
the camp, and said, Who is on the Lord's 
side? Let him come unto me." And all the 
sons of Levi gathered themselves together 
unto him. "And he said unto them, Thus 
saith the Lord God of Israel, put every man 
his sword by his side and go in and out from 
gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay 
every man his brother and every man his 
companion and every man his neighbor, and 
the children of Levi did according to the 
word of Moses, and there fell of the people 
that day three thousand men." Ex., Chap. 
32. What a slaughter! There thousand 
men dead in the camp. The people thor- 
oughly terrorized; willing now to follow the 
military dictator, their leader, the man who 
could talk with God face to face, the man 
who could get God's autograph, "God's 
handwriting" "written by the finger of 
God." 

I doubt whether the people of that age 

3° 



Cfte K3eto Cfteologp 



were prepared to receive any better concep- 
tion of God than Moses gave them, and had 
it not been for this slaughter of the kickers, 
that preferred to go back into Egypt and 
die, Moses would not have been able to have 
controlled this ignorant, idolatrous, ever 
restless people. But now Moses is master 
of the situation. Now he can lead these' 
three millions of men, women and children 
that he has brought into the wilderness. He 
is ready now for conquest. He has num- 
bered the people, and finds he has 603,500 
men of twenty years and upwards able to 
go forth to war in Israel. He is ready now 
to "drive out the Canaanites, the Amorites, 
and the Hittites and the Perisites, the 
Hivites and the Jebusites, and take posses- 
sion of the promised land, flowing with milk 
and honey." But God in his wisdom would 
not allow Moses to enter on such a conquest 
and slaughter these innocent people, but 
leaves him in the wilderness to wander there 
for forty years, and even then would not 
permit either Moses or Aaron to enter the 
promised land. After this slaughter of the 
three thousand men in the camp; after his 

3} 



C6e jQeto Cfieologg 



anger had cooled off, the record says, "And 
it came to pass on the morrow." It was on 
the morrow after Moses had slept over this 
scene of anger and slaughter, after he was 
able to see how he had let his anger "wax 
hot" and get away with him, that he could 
repent, that he could ask the people to re- 
pent, and even makes the record say that 
God, too, repented, because He, the Lord, 
had let his "wrath wax hot." "And, the 
Lord repented of the evil which he thought 
to do unto his people." What a conception 
we have here of God! God repenting. Moses 
repenting, and the people repenting, is quite 
human; like most of us when we let our 
"anger wax hot" will on the morrow repent 
and be able to see how much of a fool we 
had made of ourselves. Most of us, when 
we allow our anger to "wax hot," are 
ashamed of it afterwards. 

After all this repentance Moses again 
prepares two tables of stone and goes up into 
the mountain to talk or commune with God 
and again receive the ten commandments 
written on the two tables of stone. On this 
occasion he gets a better conception of God. 

32 



Cfie H3eto Cfteologg 



He gets into closer communion with God 
than he had ever been. He was so impressed 
with the presence of God that his face shone, 
so that even after he came down out of the 
mountain, that the people could not look 
upon him. "And when Aaron and all the 
Children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the 
skin of his face shone. And they were afraid 
to come nigh him." This was a different 
coming down out of the mountain than the 
other scene, when the u wrath of the Lord 
waxed hot" and the "anger of Moses waxed 
hot." "And afterward all the children of 
Israel came nigh and he gave them in com- 
mandment all that the Lord had spoken with 
him in Mount Sinai." "And till Moses had 
done speaking with them, he put a veil over 
his face." This was a new experience, not 
only to Moses, but to the children of Israel. 
It gave them a better conception of God, and 
his power with Moses, and his dealings with 
the children of Israel. On this occasion 
Moses says nothing about the handwriting 
of God, or that the ten commandments were 
written by the finger of God, but only that he 
"gave them in commandment all that the 

3a 



Cfce iQeto Cfteologg 



Lord had spoken to him in Mount Sinai." 
God had spoken to him in the solitude and 
quiet of Mount Sinai, just as he had spoken 
to him in that other experience, when he 
wanted to see God's face. Every man's face 
will glow in proportion to any great joy that 
comes into his life. Thus we see that Moses' 
best conception of God comes through com- 
munion with God in seeking to do the will 
of God. 

The Hebrews' conception of God was that 
they had a God with whom they could bar- 
gain. u And Israel vowed a vow unto the 
Lord, and said, If thou wilt, indeed, deliver 
this people unto my hand, then I will utterly 
destroy their cities. And the Lord harkened 
unto the voice of Israel and delivered up the 
Canaanites, and they utterly destroyed them 
and their cities. " 

What a bargain to make with the Al- 
mighty! What a conception of God, the 
Father! The bargain was perfected accord- 
ing to the Jewish conception of God. The 
Jews were always great on bargains. They 
evidently had a God that they could bar- 
gain with. Jacob was connected with some 

a* 



Cfie J3eto Cfteologg 



very questionable bargains, very questionable 
business transactions. Had he lived in this 
day in Chicago, and been a member of the 
Board of Trade, he would very likely have 
been expelled; or, had he lived in Wash- 
ington, he would have been entitled to mem- 
bership in the Ananias Club. Laban, Jacob's 
father-in-law, was good on a bargain. He 
beat Jacob on his first trade, for his daugh- 
ter, but Jacob beat him in the end — got the 
best of his cattle ranch away from him. The 
Jews are great on bargains. I think the 
present day "bargain counter" is a product 
of the Jewish thought. But it gives a very 
low conception of God. 

That was an age of sorcery, and enchant- 
ment, and magicians. Exodus, 7 : 8-12 — 
here we have, according to the Mosaic ac- 
count, the rod of Moses in competition with 
the magicians. The story told by the writer 
of the Pentateuch about the rod of Moses 
turning into a serpent, and the serpent turn- 
ing into a rod again — and the rod of the 
magicians turning into a serpent, etc. — and 
the use of the rod to bring up frogs out of 
the waters, so that they, the frogs, covered 

35 



Cfie H3eto C&eologg 



the whole land, and the magicians duplicat- 
ing the same thing, by bringing up the frogs 
out of the waters, etc., etc. (just as Aaron 
did with his rod) — putting God in competi- 
tion with the magicians — this gives a very 
low conception of God. The magicians' part 
in this story should discredit the entire story. 
No magician ever did, or ever could, bring 
the frogs out of the waters by a trick rod, 
and it only shows the very low conception 
that this people had of God. No doubt but 
Moses had a struggle to free this people 
and get them out of bondage, but the his- 
tory of it, written by Moses himself, could 
only be appreciated by an oriental people, 
whose imaginations were very vivid — a peo- 
ple who could appreciate the statement that 
"Rivers of water run down David's eyes," 
when it was only a very small stream. Had 
the history of our civil war, the deliverance 
of the black man out of slavery been written 
by an oriental mind, in connection with the 
ignorant slave, the miraculous deliverance 
and help coming to the black man would 
have been more miraculous than the deliv- 
erance of the Israelites from Pharaoh. 

36 



C6e jQeto C&eologg 



This people had been surrounded by 
Polytheism — gods many, and lords many, 
idolatry in all its forms — and could appre- 
ciate a story of this kind, the Mosaic ac- 
count of their deliverance. And like all war 
stories (for Moses was a military man) 
they grow every time they were told round 
the camp fires. 

The world's best conception of God to- 
day is very different from what it was in 
the days of Moses. The old thought, that 
God is the same yesterday, to-day and for- 
ever, is true only as to God. It is not true 
as to us. We get a better conception of 
God every day, as we grow into the knowl- 
edge of God. "Jesus, the same yesterday, 
to-day and forever," is not true, as to us. 
To all Christians He is greater to-day than 
yesterday, or last week, or last year. He 
is dearer, He is more loving. He is a 
greater Saviour every day, just in propor- 
tion as our capacities are enlarged, and we 
are able to comprehend Him. We should 
now be able to read Jesus greater yesterday 
than last year, greater to-day than yester- 
day, greater in all the forevers that shall 

37 



Cfie I9eto C&eologg 



ever come to us, in the forever. "In that 
day ye shall know that I am in my Father, 
and ye in me, and I in you." In what day? 
The day that the Comforter comes to you; 
in that day that the Spirit of Truth comes 
into your life, the Holy Ghost, to be your 
guest, your teacher, your leader — to lead 
you unto all truth, into the truth that will 
make you free. How? Just in proportion 
as your capacities are enlarged and you are 
able to receive it. Not the same Jesus, but 
the greater Jesus. Not the same God, the 
God of the Hebrews — but the God revealed 
by Jesus Christ, who was crucified by the 
Jews, because he revealed the fatherhood 
of God and the brotherhood of man, and 
said he was the son of God. Not a God of 
vengeance, to come before, with fear and 
trembling; but a God who is our Father, 
to whom we can come with holy boldness, 
realizing that we are his sons and daugh- 
ters — children of God, heirs of God, and 
joint heirs with our elder Brother, the Son, 
the Christ. 

This is a different conception to us from 
what we get from the God of Abraham, and 

38 



Cfie Ji3eto Cfieologp 



his wives and concubines, and their chil- 
dren — we know not how many; the God of 
Jacob, with his wives and children and his 
bad record; the God of Samson, with his 
record; the God of Gideon, with his numer- 
ous wives and seventy sons; the God of 
Rehoboam, with his eighteen wives and sixty 
concubines, twenty-eight sons and sixty 
daughters; the God of Solomon, with his 
seven hundred wives and three hundred con- 
cubines. I merely mention some of these 
prominent Hebrews, in order to ask our 
brother laymen of the Methodist Church, 
and other churches, if they wish only the 
conception of God given us, by these men, 
thirty-five hundred years ago. They pos- 
sibly had the best conception of God that 
they could get in their day. But we have 
had our three thousand years of growth in 
the knowledge of God since their day. Jesus 
said that there was no man born of a woman 
greater than John the Baptist up to that 
time, but that the least in the kingdom was 
greater than John the Baptist. The least 
in the kingdom has a better conception of 
God than John. John, it appears, even with 

39 



Cfie Jfteto Cfitologg 



his better opportunities to know of the 
Christ, yet was in doubt as to wh</ Jesus 
was, and, when he was in prison, sent his 
disciples to Jesus with the inquiry, "Art thou 
he that should come, or look we for an- 
other?" The answer was: "The blind see, 
the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the 
deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor 
the gospel is preached." This evidently 
gave John a different conception of God, 
and the Christ, from what he had. 

What we want to get now is the best con- 
ception of God that these various men and 
authors have given us from the earliest his- 
tory to the present time. We shall begin 
with Adam, the first man according to the 
Mosaic account. Adam's conception of God 
must have been very limited, very childlike. 
He supposed that he could hide from the 
Almighty, the Creator of the Worlds. As 
a representative of Man, the first man, he 
must grow into the knowledge of God just 
as we do. There is no other way. God 
could only reveal himself to Adam as He 
does to us, his other children. If God re- 
vealed Himself to Adam in any other way 

4° 



C&e Beta C&eologg 



than He does to us, then Adam is not our 
representative. Our conception of God in 
the twentieth century should be much supe- 
rior to Adam's. We have the advantage of 
six thousand years' growth in the knowledge 
of God. Moses' conception of God was 
necessarily limited to the Hebrew, or Jew- 
ish, conception of God. But during the nine 
hundred and thirty years that Adam lived, 
he evidently learned much about God, and 
his knowledge was partially transmitted to 
his immediate descendants, and yet the best 
conceptions we get of God come to us in 
such a way that we cannot transmit them 
to our children. 

The most interesting character that comes 
to us in this Mosaic account of Adam's im- 
mediate descendants, is Enoch. Enoch must 
have acquired an extraordinary conception 
of God, for that age. He was sixty years 
old before he knew what it was to be a 
father, to realize a father's love and a 
father's anxiety, and this may possibly have 
led him to the thought that God was his 
Father. And the record says, From this 
time he walked with God for the rest of his 



41 



Cj)e iQeto Cfieologg 



life — three hundred years. The Hebrew 
idea was that God was an anthropomorphite 
being, and that man was created in the 
image of God, physically. But Enoch 
learned better. He walked with God spir- 
itually for three hundred years. God is 
good. Enoch was good. God is love. 
Enoch must have loved his fellow men. God 
is truth. Enoch must have been true to his 
obligations. God is righteous. Enoch must 
have been righteous in all his life; he mus£ 
have been good, and lovely, and true, and 
righteous every day for three hundred years. 
Some of us think we do well when we walk 
with God during a revival season, or during 
a season of bereavement and sorrow — when 
God comes to us, as he always does in our 
need, but Enoch walked with God three hun- 
dred years. But he could not transmit his 
experience with God to his children. We 
cannot transmit ours to our children. Every 
one must come into communion with God 
for himself only. Such communion with God 
is not transferable. Enoch walked with God 
for three hundred years, the record says, 
"and he was not, for God took him." He 

:42 



€i)e H3eto Cfieologg 



only lived about half the allotted time for 
man, in that age — but it was unnecessary 
for him to live any longer to prepare him- 
self for this life and the endless life. Enoch 
was Noah's great grandfather. Enoch was 
only the seventh generation from Adam; and 
Noah only the tenth generation from Adam; 
and yet, according to the Mosaic account, 
men had become so wicked, so corrupt, that 
God, who made them and made the worlds, 
could do nothing with them but destroy them 
from the face of the earth. And Enoch 
lived under these conditions, and among 
such a wicked people, and yet he walked with 
God. Why the people in this age, so near 
to the creation of the first man, should grow 
into such a corrupt, wicked people, to me is 
explained only on the theory of evolution. 
They were evoluted, or had come up through 
animal life. This accounts for the animal, 
that is still part of our being. In this early 
stage of human life, the animal predomina- 
ted. And, according to the Genesis account, 
the only remedy was to wipe out the entire 
part of the human race that had been over- 
come and dominated by the animal part of 

43 



CBe JSeto Cfieologp 



their being, and start anew, with the small 
remnant that had escaped the corruptions 
of animal life and learned to know God. 
Noah, who built the ark for this escape, 
was Enoch's great grandson, only the tenth 
generation of men as it were. But still the 
animal in man was not extinct, but developed 
itself in the after life of Noah and his fa- 
mily. But God promised not to destroy them 
again. God gave help, promise, to those 
iwho would obey Him and grow away from 
the animal life within us into the better life 
found by Enoch and Noah, and to those 
who would not obey, but who would cling to 
the animal life within them, to eventually 
destroy themselves by disobedience. The 
iniquities or sins of the fathers descend to 
the children, even to the third and fourth 
generation of them that disobey, that hate 
instruction, and by the time the fifth genera- 
tion is reached the family name is wiped out. 
I have never yet found a family of unbeliev- 
ers, wicked men, before they reached the 
fifth generation, but what they were all in 
prison or diseased or unable to perpetuate 
the name. The meek shall inherit the earth. 

44 



Cfte H3eto Cfieologg 



The Lord preserveth the righteous. And on 
this basis the wicked destroy themselves. No 
necessity for another flood to destroy the 
wicked. "The wicked shall not live out 
half their days." Nothing truer than that 
"the wages of sin is death." When? In 
this life. Nothing truer than "Whatsoever 
a man soweth, that shall he reap." When? 
In this life. The first ten generations all 
but Noah and his family, were wiped out 
in this life. What became of them in the 
future life? God only knows, and He has 
not revealed it unto us. 

The next most interesting character to me, 
in the Bible, is David, the sweet singer of 
Israel. He gives us almost a twentieth cen- 
tury conception of God and the creation of 
man (Psalm 139). He could not get away 
from God. He evidently realized that he 
was a part of God himself — part of the 
Deity. For he says "O Lord, Thou hast 
searched me and know me. Thou under- 
standest my thought afar off. For there is 
no word on my tongue, but Lo ! Oh, Lord, 
thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset 
me behind and before, and laid thine hand 

45 



Cfte U3eto Cfteologg 



upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful 
for me, it is high, I cannot attain unto it?" 
It is too wonderful for us. It might lead 
us into the secret of the origin of life. Then 
he goes on to explain that he cannot get away 
from God. Did he comprehend the Christ 
thought, expressed to the disciples, (John 14- 
20), u In that day ye shall know that I am 
in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you?" 

Inseparable from God; the divinity of 
man. 

Then he said "I will praise thee, for I 
am fearfully and wonderfully made. My sub- 
stance was not hid from thee, when I was 
made in secret and curiously wrought in the 
lowest parts of the earth." Did David re- 
fer here to the secret of the origin of life? 
It seems like it, for he says: "Thine eyes 
did see my substance, yet being unperfect; 
since in thy book all my members were writ- 
ten which in continuance were fashioned, 
when as yet there was none of them." 

It seems to me that David was looking 

away back to the beginning of Evolution, 

when he was merely the outline of the' 

thought of God. For he exclaims, "How 

46 



Cfie H3eto Cfieologg 



precious, also, are thy thoughts unto me, O 
God, how great is the sum of them; if I 
should count them they are more in number 
than the sand. When I awake I am still with 
thee." No getting away from God. David 
must have had some conception of the 
thought that we have to-day, — That the uni- 
verse, and everything that we can conceive 
of, is the product of the thoughts of God, 
and man. And that He has made us, his 
children, also creators — in a limited sense. 
Everything that we make, or create, is the 
product of thought. To illustrate : the great 
city of Chicago is the product of thought. 
Every brick in it was a thought, before it 
was a brick. Every building was well 
thought out, before it was a building. Every 
piece of architecture was a thought before it 
was a piece of architecture. In truth, the 
great city of Chicago is the product of the 
thoughts of the men and women of Chicago. 
The creation of the limited creators, of this 
great city. To this extent God has made us, 
His children in His own image — creators, 
limited, in that we are finite, and He is in- 
finite. God spoke (or thought) the world, 

47 



Cfie H3eto Cfieologg 



or universe, into existence. We are the prod- 
uct of His thought. It makes no difference 
whether God made us on the sixth day, or 
the sixth age or period of creation, accord- 
ing to the Genesis account. He made us in 
secret, and the secret of the origin of life, 
or of the species, is still a secret, and is lia- 
ble to remain so. Whether we were evolu- 
ted up through animal life, from the lowest 
parts of the earth or of the creation, through 
the sixth age or period of creation of animal 
life, — or whether God made man after He 
made the other animals, is immaterial. 

According to the Genesis account, He made 
a perfect man physically, a perfect animal 
man, before He made a divine man — breath- 
ing into him a soul, a part of Himself, a 
thinker — giving him life — divine life, God 
life, making him a son of God — a thinker, 
able through his thought, to create in a 
limited sense. Again David exclaims, "How 
precious are thy thoughts to us, O God! 
how great is the sum of them." Thou un- 
derstandest my thoughts afar off." Of all 
the biblical writers none has given us such 
a twentieth century conception of God as a 
48 



C6e iQeto Cfteologg 



creator, and of the creation of man, as 
David has. And yet, David did not get the 
best conception of God, the Christ concep- 
tion — that we should love our enemies. For 
he continues in the same psalm, saying "Sure- 
ly thou wilt slay the wicked," "I hate them 
with a perfect hatred," "I count them mine 
enemies." David was a good hater. 

David's account of his creation, the cre- 
ation of man is in harmony with the doc- 
trine of Evolution. God made a perfect 
animal man first, and then gave him a soul. 
Adam may have been an animal, up to the 
time he was evoluted or perfected into a man, 
ready to receive a soul — ready to receive the 
divine life. He may have lived among the 
other animals and been familiar with them, 
and possessed, with them, animal intelligence. 
We know that there are some very intel- 
ligent animals. We might say they have 
more than instinct. They have a language 
of their own. They communicate with each 
other. The horse is very intelligent; will 
recognize his former owner, sometimes after 
a year or more separation. The dog is in- 
telligent; will recognize his former master 

49 



Cfie jQeto C&eologg 



after years of separation, and will appreci- 
ate kindness and admiration; the serpent 
had intelligence and could talk with Adam 
and Eve. In line with these facts we can 
understand why God called on Adam to 
name the animals, according to the Genesis 
account. Genesis 2, 19-20: "And out of the 
ground the Lord God formed every beast of 
the field, and every fowl of the air, and 
brought them to Adam to see what he would 
call them" — (A Mosaic conception of God, 
that God did not know what Adam would 
call the animals) — "and whatsoever Adam 
called every living creature that was the 
name thereof. Now, if Adam had lived 
among the animals during what we might 
call his embryonic life, or his evoluting life — 
preparatory to his man life, or son of God 
life — with ordinary intelligence, he would be 
perfectly able to name all the beasts of the 
field and the fowls of the air. Otherwise 
he could not be. God could not make per- 
fect human man and bring him into the world' 
without experience, or education, who would 
be able to name all the beasts of the field 
and the fowls of the air God cannot make 



59 



Cfie iQeto Cfteologp 



a man of thirty years experience in less than 
thirty years. Do you charge me with limit- 
ing God? God limits himself. There are 
some things God cannot do. God is truth. 
God cannot lie. God is pure; He cannot be 
impure. God is holy; he cannot be unholy. 
We can understand how the other animals 
would look at Adam after he became a hu- 
man being, a God man, just as they look at 
man now, — realizing that man has dominion 
over the beasts of the field, and the fowls of 
the air. What God has in store for the ani- 
mal world, we know not. Butler, in his an- 
alogy to prove the immortality of the soul 
of man, which we think he proves very con- 
clusively, states that every argument he 
uses to prove the immortality of the soul 
of man will apply with equal force to the 
soul or "spirit of the beast." 

Solomon's conception of god. 

Solomon was a man of great wisdom. 
When he was born, the records says "That 
God loved him." Again it says, "And the 
Lord magnified Solomon exceedingly in the 

5* 



Cfte H3eto Cfteologp 



sight of all Israel, and bestowed upon him 
such real majesty, as had not been on any 
king before him in Israel.' , And again, 
"Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of 
all the children of the east country, and 
all the wisdom of Egypt." Making due al- 
lowance for all the exaggerated accounts 
of oriental writers, Solomon was, unques- 
tionably, the wisest and greatest man of his 
age. When David his Father turned the 
kingdom over to him, it evidently brought 
to him a sense of his responsibility, for which 
he was unprepared, and he was wise enough 
to recognize the only real source of help in 
such an emergency. Hence his prayer, II 
Chr. i, 8-12: And Solomon said to God, 
u Thou hast shown great mercy unto David, 
my Father, and hast made me to reign in 
his stead. Now, O Lord God, let thy prom- 
ise unto David, my father, be established: 
for thou hast made me king over a people 
like the dust of the earth in multitude. Give 
me now wisdom, and knowledge, that I may 
go out and come in before this people, for 
who can judge this thy people that is so 
great." This prayer alone shows Solomon's 

5* . 



Cfie H3eto Cfieologg 



great wisdom. There never was a more 
appropriate or wiser prayer made under the 
circumstances. And God answered it. He 
not only gave the wisdom and knowledge 
asked for, but gave him riches and wealth 
and honor, "such as none of the kings have 
had, that have been before thee, neither 
shall any after thee have the like." Solo- 
mon knew how to ask, and how to knock. 
He evidently had got hold of the truth that 
Jesus enunciated when he said, "Ask and 
it shall be given you, seek and ye shall find, 
knock and it shall be opened unto you." Sol- 
omon was asking for wisdom and knowledge 
— seeking for wisdom and knowledge, — > 
knocking at every door that promised good 
for his people. He broke loose from the 
old Jewish idea of seclusion. He showed 
his wisdom in his organizations of men, of, 
nations and of navies. He did it now. He 
put men to work. He employed all the 
expert workmen he could find in masonry, 
in woodwork, in gold, in silver, in brass, in 
iron, and in everything that pertained to 
building, improvement, and commerce. He 
put seventy thousand common laborers, bur- 



Cfte jQeto Cfieologg 



den bearers, to work; and forty thousand 
carpenters, or hewers, in the mountains, and 
thirty-six hundred to be overseers. Break- 
ing loose from former Jewish ideas and ex- 
clusiveness he formed alliances with the sur- 
rounding nations. He built navies, employed 
expert seamen, and went to the uttermost 
parts of the earth and seas in search of gold 
and merchandise. He discovered the land 
of Ophir, the land of Gold, from which 
the record says, he received as much as 
eighty-three thousand pounds of gold in one 
year; "besides that which merchant men and 
ship merchants brought." "And the kings of 
Arabia and governors of the country brought 
gold and silver to Solomon." "And King 
Solomon exceeded all the kings of the earth 
in riches and wisdom." He was great in 
all it took to make greatness in that age. 
That was an age in which it took gold and 
silver, and cattle, and clothing and a large 
number of wives and concubines to consti- 
tute greatness; but in our age the simple 
name of Washington, or Lincoln or Grant 
or Beecher, or Swing, is a better synonym 
for greatness. Solomon with all his wisdom, 

54 



Cfte jQeto C&eologg 



with all his greatness, must have had a very 
limited conception of God; a God that could 
bless him in all his love affairs for the record 
says, "But King Solomon loved many strange 
women, together with the daughter of Phar- 
oh, women of the Moabites, Ammonites, 
Edomites, Zidonians and Hittites. And he 
had seven hundred wives, princesses, and 
three hundred concubines." The very sup- 
port of this number of wives and concubines 
would figure quite largely in making up the 
invoice of Solomon's greatness in that age. 
Thus we are able to see that Solomon, and 
the age in which he was great, had a very 
low conception of God. Jesus said that John 
the Baptist was the greatest man born of 
a woman up to that date, but that the least 
in the kingdom was greater that John. We 
might say the least in the kingdom is greater 
than Solomon. The least in the kingdom 
certainly has a better conception of God than 
Solomon. "He that hath seen me, hath seen 
the Father." 



GOOD AND EVIL. 



God is good. Evil is bad. Good is 
God. Evil is Satan. Good and evil are 
opposites. In our Heavenly Father's econ- 
omy of the world, both good and evil are 
necessary. If there was no good, there could 
be no evil. Evil is the absence of good. 
Good is joy. Evil is sadness. If there were 
no joy, there could be no sadness. If there 
were no sunshine, there could be no shadow. 
Both are necessary. From the effects, or 
the operations of Good and Evil, we have 
joy and sadness. We have pleasure and 
pain. We have success and failure. We have 
health and sickness. We have light and 
darkness. Both good and evil are requisite 
to our development. The Apostle says we 
are perfected through suffering. We could 
be perfected only through the operation of 
good and evil. 



Cfie H3eto Cfteologp 



Vegetable life is perfected the same way, 
being acted upon by opposites, — good and 
evil. The light and the darkness; the cold 
and the warmth, the rain and the sunshine. 
A few years ago I planted some tomato 
plants in the glare of an electric light, within 
twenty feet of the electric light pole. Sun- 
light all the day, electric light all the night. 
No darkness. The result: I got tomato 
vines, but no fruit, some bloom, but no fruit. 
I learned that darkness is as necessary to 
vegetable lift as the light. The fruit tree 
requires the good and evil, to perfect its 
growth and fruitage. It must have the light 
and darkness. If there was sunlight all the 
time, there could be no perfected vegetation. 
The light and the darkness; the necessary 
warmth and the frost; the rain and the sun- 
shine ! See that tree, so loaded with blooms ? 
If every bloom was perfected into the fruit, 
it would destroy the tree : but the frost comes 
and destroys the weaker blooms, and 
strengthens and perfects the rest, and saves 
the tree. Perfected through the influence of 
Good and Evil! 

So with us; so with humanity. We need 

11 



Cfte iQeto Cfieologp 



the good and the evil. We need the sunlight 
and the shadows. We need the sorrow and 
the gladness. We must needs have our suc- 
cesses and our failures, our joys and our 
griefs. We, too, are perfected by suffering. 
In the perfection of vegetable life, much is 
destroyed by the evil ; and yet, it is over-ruled 
by the good. The good is strengthened by 
the operations of the evil. 

In human life, the fruit of good is "love, 
joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, 
faithfulness, meekness, temperance." The 
fruit of evil, fornication, uncleanliness, lacivi- 
ousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, 
jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, here- 
sies, envyings, drunkenness, revelings, and 
such like. Everybody knows that these things 
above enumerated represent Good and Evil. 

We are now living in the spirit age, where- 
in God has: "put his laws in our minds and 
written them in our hearts." So that it is 
unnecessary for any man to say to his 
brother, "Know the Lord, for all shall know 
him even from the least to the greatest." 
Our hearts and consciences are the tests of 
God's law, the tests of right and wrong. The 

58 



Cfte iQeto Cfieologg 



tests of good and evil. How much of veg- 
etable life is destroyed by the operations of 
good and evil, in perfecting the good, will 
never be known. How much of human life 
is to be destroyed, or perish, through the 
perfecting influence of good and evil, we 
cannot tell. The Apostle Paul says, (Cor. 
3; 14-15) "If any man's work abide which 
he hath built, thereupon he shall receive a 
reward." "If any man's work shall be burned 
he shall suffer loss, but he himself shall be 
saved, yet so as by fire." 

A great many people, financially, socially, 
morally, and religiously are saved so as by 
fire, they barely escape. They barely escape 
the financial wrecks. They barely escape so- 
cially, morally and religiously. They escape 
'so as by fire.' They fail to build on the 
rock, and when the floods come, as they come 
to every human life, their work is destroyed. 
Our Heavenly Father knows just what is 
best for his children, in all the ages, and in 
all the nations of the world. He is not will- 
ing that any should perish, but that all should 
come to the knowledge of the truth. When? 
Where? How? — Just in £rogortion as they 

59; 



Cfte iSeto Cfteologg 



have the capacity to receive it and the oppor- 
tunity to embrace it. Possibly not all in this 
life, but "at the name of Jesus every knee 
should bow, of things in Heaven, and things 
in earth, and things under the earth, and 
every tongue should confess that Jesus is 
Lord, to the glory of God and Father." 

"And things under the earth," I believe 
refers to the spirit world to which Jesus went 
just after he was crucified, and preached to 
the spirits in person. A place of advance- 
ment, where all can come to the knowledge 
of the truth. 

We are perfected by the operations of 
good and evil. Here is a case in hand. A 
short time ago the little eight-year-old boy 
of Mr. and Mrs. Whitla, of Sharon, Penn- 
sylvania, was kidnapped. The sorrow and 
anguish of the parents and friends of the boy 
were unbearable. The kidnappers demand- 
ed a ransom of ten thousand dollars. The 
father of the boy, in his distress and anxiety 
for the safety and return of the boy, was 
eagerly anxious to pay the ten thousand dol- 
lars and secure his boy. He got into con- 
fidential communication with the kidnappers, 
60 



Ci)e H2eto Cfteologp 



and arranged to pay the ransom, ten 
thousand dollars, and secured the return 
of his boy. The money was paid and the 
boy returned to the father. But the police 
in Cleveland, Ohio, were on the alert, and 
the kidnappers were captured within a few 
hours after they had received the money, 
and the money captured with them. The 
whole country was aroused as it had not been 
since the kidnapping of Charlie Ross. The 
sympathy of thousands of good people of 
many states went out to the parents and 
friends of the boy. The kidnappers were 
found to be a man and his wife, both of 
good and respectable families. Both well 
educated and of good ability. This is a 
sad case in more ways than one. See the 
opposites in this case. Good and evil. Sor- 
row and gladness. Good triumphs in the 
return of the boy to his father's arms. Evil 
triumphs over the two kidnappers. They 
will suffer loss, but the end is not with them 
yet. Good has triumphed in that the sacred 
ties binding parent and child have been 
strengthened in thousands who have been 
exercised over this case. Many daughters 
61 



C6e JBeto Cfieologg 



who were on the verge of ruin have been 
turned back by the example. The father of 
this woman kidnapper, it is said, cast his 
daughter out of his heart some few years 
ago, and, in her anxiety to get into the heart 
of someone else, she was overcome of evil. 
The good resulting from this, will be in 
strengthening the ties between parents and 
children. Thus, in this sad case, it can clear- 
ly be seen that good is largely in excess of 
the evil. Good and evil co-operate in our 
development. 

We add another illustration of the co- 
operation of good and evil. This occurred 
since the above was written. We refer to 
the great coal mine disaster at Cherry, Il- 
linois, where five hundred and seventeen men 
miners were in the mine when the fire broke 
out. Of this number 217 escaped the fire. 
Ten men, heroes, lost their lives in an at- 
tempt to rescue the men from the burning 
mine. These heroes were caught by the 
flame and burned while in the cage, before 
it could be hoisted. Seven days after the 
fire commenced, twenty men — supposed to 
be dead, and mourned for dead — were res- 
62 



Cfte jQeto Cijeologg 



cued and brought out alive. A total death 
list of 310 miners, whose lives were sacri- 
ficed in this great disaster. The sorrow that 
came to the wives and children of these dead 
miners can never be measured. The sorrow 
that came to the little town of Cherry can 
never be told. The sorrow that came to the 
people of the state, we might almost say the 
nation, for the news of this disaster was read 
everywhere, north, south, east and west, can 
never be forgotten. The softening influences 
of the great holocaust were felt by everyone 
who read of the disaster, and money and 
help came from every quarter of the State. 
We were reminded of the Fatherhood of 
God and the Brotherhood of Man. We re- 
alized that these poor miners were our broth- 
ers, and they have our sympathy. Our sor- 
rows were comingled with the sorrows of the 
bereaved ones, and, notwithstanding the 
great evil in this great disaster, the good that 
will come of it is greater than the evil. The 
hearts and thoughts of the masses will be 
more tender, will look more kindly upon that 
great body of men who work in the mines, 
that we may enjoy the benefits of their labor. 

63. 



Cfte JBeto Cfteologp 



The State will look into the causes of this 
calamity. Conditions will be made safer, for 
the men thus employed. Boys under sixteen 
will not be allowed to enter the mines here- 
after. When we think of these men, thus 
entrapped, thus doomed to die, how bravely 
they met their death! How they counted 
the hours in their diaries! How they sang 
and prayed ! How they turned to the Father, 
the only real source of help in such times of 
trouble! Of course the full experiences of 
these men under these trying conditions will 
never be told, but we learned enough to know 
how bravely and trustingly they met their 
fate. They will appear to us as our brothers 
more fully than if this disaster would never 
have occurred. So that the good, even in 
this terrible disaster, will be much greater 
than the evil. Our individual lives, our faith, 
our civilization, is perfected by the operation 
of good and evil. 

Overcome evil with good. There is no 
other way. It is a struggle for advancement. 
A struggle to better our conditions, and we 
sometimes choose the evil to accomplish that 
purpose. We discover our mistakes only 

6 4 



C[)e J13eto Cfteologg 



when the evil fails to do so, and then we 
suffer loss. God, in his wisdom, created the 
evil and the good, and uses them in the 
growth and development of his children. 
These light afflictions are not joyous, but 
grievous; nevertheless, they work out the 
peacable fruits of righteousness to them who 
are exercised thereby. God is as much the 
author of evil as he is the author of good. 
He created both the evil and the good, and 
each has its place in the perfecting of his 
children. 

God is good. Jesus said: "There is none 
good but God." The best conceptions ws 
have of good are the best conceptions we 
can get of God. He that hath seen the ten- 
der, loving Christ, has seen God. "He that 
hath seen me hath seen the Father." Hath 
seen the personal God. Our Father, we his 
sons and daughters! "In that day ye shall 
know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, 
and I in you." The family of God, — Father, 
sons and daughters. The Father, our per- 
sonal God. 

Evil is the personification of Satan, the 
devil, the evil one. If you have seen evil, 

6S, 



Cfie H3eto Cfeeologp 



you have seen Satan. If you have seen the 
brothel, you have seen devils incarnate. If 
you have seen the midnight orgies, you have 
seen the devil incarnate. Personal devils. 
The only personal devil you will ever see is 
a devil in human form. Peter was Satan in 
the very presence of Jesus, and Jesus said 
to him, "Get behind me Satan," Thou art 
an offense to me." Your best friend may 
sometimes be Satan to you, trying to lead 
you away from the truth, or trying to lead 
you into evil. Evil is only the absence of 
good. Where good dwells in all its fullness, 
there can be no evil. 

God creates evil as he creates darkness for, 
his own purposes. (Isaiah 45-7). I form 
light and create darkness; I make peace and 
create evil (Amos 3-6). Shall there be evil 
in a city and the Lord hath not done it? Sin 
and holiness are opposites. If there was no 
such thing as Holiness there could be no sin. 
If there was no law, then there could be no 
transgression of the law (Paul, Romans 
4-13). For where no law is there is no 
transgression (Romans 5-13). For until 
the law sin was in the world, but sin is 
66 



Clje H2eto Cfteologg 



not imputed when there is no law. ( i John 
3-4). Whosoever committeth sin transgres- 
seth also the law. For sin is the transgres- 
sion of the law. And all have sinned. I 
desire now to say here with all reverence that 
God could not make a man a free agent with- 
out making a sinner. The very fact that God 
has made us free agents, with the power to 
choose evil or to choose good, to obey or 
transgress, to sin and repent, to struggle and 
grow, into his likeness, makes us His chil- 
dren. The very fact that we must grow, into 
the knowledge of God, there is no other way, 
makes it necessary that we should struggle 
with good and evil, with truth and error, and 
thus growing into the knowledge that we are 
the children of our Heavenly Father, per- 
fected through the operation of good and 
evil. 

Good and Evil are inseparable in us. 
They are parts of our very being. Some 
would call them our higher and lower na- 
tures, our spiritual and carnal natures. Our 
better natures seeking to do good, or seek- 
ing the good; and our lower natures seeking 
the evil. Paul says, Rom. Chap. 7, after 

67 



C6e Jl2eto Cfjeologg 



discussing the influences of good and evil — 
"For the good that I would I do not, but 
the evil which I would not, that I do." I 
find then a law, that, when I would do good 
evil is present with me, inseparable in our 
very being, tied together in our very makeup ; 
the irrepressible conflict in our lives, in our 
earthly lives from which there is no deliver- 
ance in this life. 

The severest conflict that Jesus ever en- 
dured was at the very end of his earthy life, 
not even in the Garden but on the cross that 
caused him to cry out "My God, My God, 
why hast thou forsaken me"; but the good 
even then triumphed and enabled him to 
say "Father, forgive them for they know 
not what they do." Humanity is the product 
of good and evil. 



68 



THEOLOGY. 



Every religion must have a theology. The- 
ology is a classified expression of Religion. 
The laymen in all our churches have as much 
religion, possibly more, than the teachers, 
preachers, or theological professors. But it 
is not supposed that a layman should write 
very extensively on the subject of either The- 
ology or Religion. However, we shall en- 
deavor to give a layman's view of the New 
Theology. 

THE NEW AND THE OLD— In Re- 
ligion, in Theology, in Science, in Literature, 
in Mechanics, in Agriculture, in Life, the old 
is displaced or destroyed by the new. In the 
Christian Religion, the old covenant was su- 
perseded by the new. Under the old cove- 
nant, God spoke to the people through the 
Prophets; under the new. He speaks 
through his son, Jesus Christ. Under the 

69 



Ci)e iQeto Cfceologp 



old, the Prophets spake to, or taught, the 
people through the Law. Under the new, 
God puts his laws in our minds and writes 
them on our hearts, so that no man is under 
the necessity of saying to his brother, Know 
the Lord; for all shall know Him, from the 
least to the greatest. I heard a returned 
African missionary say recently, that one of 
the things that surprised him, in that coun- 
try among these native black men, was that 
in his intercourse with the people — with the 
children of these black men — the boys and 
girls have as clear a conscience of right and 
wrong as he had. 

Thus the old covenant is set aside or dis- 
placed by the new. The Old Bible thought 
of six days for Self and one for God has 
been superseded by the new thought of seven 
days for God and nothing for Self. In The- 
ology the old is very rapidly giving place to 
the new. In Science, the new is displacing 
the old. The Chemistries used fifty years 
ago cannot be used today. In Literature, the 
old is out of date, the new conceptions of 
truth are taking the place of the old. In 
Mechanics, the new is greatly in advance of 
70 



Cfie J0eto Cfieologg 



the old. In Agriculture, the new is always 
superseding the old. Fifty years ago one 
man with the old implements would work 
five acres of corn; today, with the new, he 
works sixty acres. In life, Human Life, the 
old customs, the old thoughts, are constantly 
being displaced by the new. In the church, 
the old customs and ideas are giving place 
to the new. We have the individual com- 
munion cup today; twenty years ago it would 
not have been possible. Fifty years ago the 
church organ was a very questionable piece 
of property in many of the churches, and the 
violin or the harp could not have been 
thought of. Close communion in the church 
has given away to the more christian thought 
of open communion. 

Solomon said, three thousand years ago, 
that there was nothing new under the sun. 
We are told that the latest patterns, or styles, 
of jewelry are three thousand years old. It 
has also been said, that if we could discover, 
or rather recover, some of the lost arts, we 
would have our fortune. With all our boast- 
ed inventions and pride of modern mechan- 
ism, we are told that the ancients, three 



C6e H9eto C&eologg 



thousand years ago, could move and trans- 
port blocks of stone, for miles, so large that 
we have no knowledge, or machinery to move 
them a single foot. King David said, over 
two thousand years ago, that the Heavens 
declared the glory of God and the firmament 
showeth his handiwork. When you have 
made this discovery — that declaration, and 
shown the handiwork of the Almighty, you 
have been over nearly all the lines of 
thought, old and new, with which we have 
to do, or are capable of doing. 

The glory of God, and his handiwork! 
David, in this same connection, speaking of 
these lines of thought, says, "Their lines 
have gone out through all the earth, and 
their thoughts to the end of the world. There 
is no language or speech where their voice 
is not heard." That is, there is no thought, 
or expression of thought, where their voice 
is not heard. Students, scholars, thinkers, 
in all ages, have been trying to run out along 
and grasp these lines of thought. No one 
has ever run out very far, on any of these 
lines of thought, until he discovers that they 
declared the glory of God. Usually when 

72; 



Cfte lOeto Cfieologp 



thinking men disagree, they disagree because 
they have been out on different lines of 
thought, each realizing that his peculiar line 
of thought declares the glory of God, hence 
must be right, and all others wrong. When 
he gets off the too often little, narrow line 
that he has been out on, and goes out over 
other and broader lines of thought he will 
find that they too declare the glory of God. 
God spake, or thought, the world into ex- 
istence. All creative thought is from God, 
and will show his glory. No one ever in- 
vented anything, or made anything or con- 
structed anything, but what it was a thought 
before it was an object or thing. The City 
of Chicago is a wonderful city, but there is 
not a brick, or a building, or a piece of furn- 
iture or architecture, but what was a thought 
before it was a reality. The great city is 
the result, or product, of thought, every man, 
every woman, contributing his or her part 
in the building of the city. Is it not also 
true that the City of the New Jeruselam, the 
City with the golden streets, is and will be 
a product of thought, and everyone entering 
that city contributes something to its mag- 

73 



C&e H3eto Cfieologg 



nificance and beauty. The golden thoughts, 
the thoughts of pearl, of onyx and crystal, 
the thoughts of God, the thoughts of Christ, 
the thoughts of Moses and Elias, the 
thoughts of John the Baptist and the purer 
and better thoughts of the very least of those 
now in the Kingdom. Such magnificence, 
such a product of thought, old and new. No 
wonder that John in his vision, on the isle of 
Patmos, with his figures of golden streets 
and crystal fountains fails to describe it. He 
gave us as good a description of the beauti- 
ful city as language could give, or we have 
the capacity to receive. But it is very dif- 
ficult to describe thought or the product of 
thought, especially when the divine hand is 
back of it. The world is moved by thought, 
old and new. The best of it is divine thought, 
and is as old as Deity itself. So Solomon 
learned many years ago, that there was noth- 
ing new under the sun. Yet, there is very 
much new to you and to me. Old and new 
are relative terms to us. What is old to 
one man may be new to another. What is 
old in one age may be new in the next. The 
old should not be abandoned because it is 



74 



Cfte Jl3eto Ci)eolO0g 



old, neither should the new be accepted be- 
cause it is new. First principles are as old 
as eternity, and should never be abandoned 
or lost sight of. They are the foundations 
upon which we must build, if we become 
scholarly. Should the student attempt to 
build without these corner stones, when the 
floods come, when the testing time comes, 
he will discover that he is built upon the 
sands. This is true in literature, in morals, 
in finance, and in religion. Sooner or later 
the floods will come, they do come to every 
human life, — the testing time, and then it is 
that we discover whether we have built upon 
the rock or upon the sand. Building on the 
rock, or building on the sand, is old, old as 
humanity. Sowing and reaping is old, old as 
the ages. When the serpent said to Eve, the 
fruit is beautiful, thou shalt not surely die, 
the thought was new to Eve; she accepted 
the new without sufficient investigation, and 
you know the result. When God said to 
humanity, 'the heel of the man shall bruise 
the head of the serpent,' it was a new thought 
for humanity, — and from this central 
thought has come the Christ, — the hope of 

75 



Cfie Jl3eta Cfieologp 



the world, with all its beauty, with all its 
blessings, and with the promise that the old, 
with all its errors, shall pass away, and that 
all things shall become new. Oh, there are 
so many grand new things in this age. New 
to us. New methods. New lines of thought, 
to us. New thoughts of electricity, new in- 
ventions, new discoveries. The new philos- 
ophy, the new theology, the new nation, with 
a big N. The new man. The new woman. 
The new life, revealed, manifested in us. 
The new life is manifested in us in propor- 
tion as the old dies within us, and we are 
led on and inspired by the new. New hopes, 
new objects in life. To all such, the new 
seems best. The present age to many seems 
a new age. We have the new theology. As 
men grow religiously or intellectually, they 
get new and better conceptions of the truth. 
The real teacher never ceases to grow. The 
new things that come into his life, each day, 
make him stronger, wiser, and better fitted 
for his work. He is better qualified to 
choose, between the old and the new. The 
preacher is only a teacher of the people, and 
if he absorbs more of Christ, and grows into 

7 6 



Cfte K3eto Cfieologg 



the perfect stature of a man in Christ Jesus, 
with the new man fully developed and the 
old man entirely dead, — thus giving us a 
new Theology, (so new to many professed 
Christians) we hail such a new Theology 
with joy. 

The old theology is fast passing away to 
give place to the new. The laymen of our 
churches have very largely abandoned the 
old theology of an endless Hell, or place of 
torment for the damned. And we seldom 
hear the doctrine of endless punishment 
preached any more, except by the travelling, 
money-making evangelist. The doctrine of 
the blood atonement for sin, and the fall of 
man, is seldom preached on any more, and 
the ordinary intelligent layman has lost his 
interest in such theology, the doctrine of an 
angry God, angry over the eating of an 
apple, — or the disobedience of his own 
child, who could not grow or progress with- 
out making mistakes — and then trying to 
find some way by which he can forgive his 
own children for their sin, is so silly that 
intelligent men and women fail to be inter- 
ested any more in such theology. I cannot 

.77 



Ci)e J0eto C&eologg 



better express myself on this subject than by 
quoting Rev. Dr. F. J. Campbell, Pastor of 
the City Temple Church, London, Eng- 
land: 

"But how do ordinary church-going Chris- 
tians talk about God? They talk as though 
He was (practically) a finite being stationed 
somewhere above and beyond the universe, 
watching and worrying over other and less- 
er finite beings, to-wit, ourselves. Accord- 
ing to the received phraseology, this God is 
greatly bothered and thwarted, by what men 
have been doing throughout the few milleni- 
ums of human existence. He takes the whole 
thing very seriously, and thinks about little 
else than getting wayward humanity into line 
again. To this end He has adopted various 
expedients, the chief of which was the send- 
ing of His only begotten Son to suffer and 
die in order that He might be free to for- 
give the trouble we had caused Him. I hope 
no reader of these words will think I am 
making light of a sacred subject; I never 
was more serious in my life. What I am 
trying to show is that, reduced to its sim- 
plest terms, the accepted theology of the 



Cfte iQeto Cfteolo0g 



churches today is pitiably inadequate as an 
expansion of our relationship to this great 
and mysterious universe. There is a beau- 
tiful spiritual truth underneath every ven- 
erable article of the Christian faith, but as 
popularily presented this truth has become 
so distorted as to be falsehood. It narrows 
religion and belittles God. It is dishonoring 
to human nature, and is absolutely ludicrous 
as an interpretation of the cosmic process. 
Of course, the dogmatic theologian will main- 
tain that this is a caricature of the way in 
which the relationship of God to the world 
is set forth in religious treatises and from 
the Christian pulpit, but is it? I think I 
can appeal with confidence to the thoughtful 
man who has given up going to church as to 
whether it is or not. The God of the ordin- 
ary church-goer, and with the man who is 
supposed to teach him from study and pul- 
pit, is an antiquated theologian who made 
his universe so badly that it went wrong in 
spite of Him and has remained wrong ever 
since. Why He should ever have created 
it is not clear. Why He should be the in- 
jured party in all the miseries that have en- 

79 



Cfie H3eto C&eologg 



sued is still less clear. The poor crippled 
child who has been maimed by a falling rock, 
and the white-faced match box maker who 
works eighteen hours out of the twenty-four 
to keep body and soul together have surely 
some sort of a claim upon God apart from 
being miserable, sinners, who must account 
themselves fortunate to be forgiven for 
Christ's sake. Faugh! It is all so unreal 
and so stupid. This kind of God is no God 
at all. The theologian may call Him infin- 
ite, but in practice He is finite. He may call 
Him a God of Love, but in practice he is 
spiteful and silly." 

Has it occurred to you that not more than 
one-eighth of the population of Chicago at- 
tend the various churches? Has it not oc- 
curred to you that a large proportion of the 
membership of our various churches are very 
irregular attendants. We had intended to 
give the average attendance of some of our 
prominent churches, at the morning service 
and at the mid-week prayer meetings, but 
upon investigation we feared it would be very 
embarassing to the churches to publish the 
names of the churches and facts in regard 
80 



Cfte iQeto Cfteologg 



to the membership and attendance. We 
have visited city churches in Chicago with 
a membership of six hundred and found less 
than one-tenth of the members in attendance 
at the mid-week prayer meetings. What 
church would be willing to publish the aver- 
age attendance of their own membership at 
the morning service, or evening service, or 
at the mid-week prayer meetings? What 
is true of the Chicago churches is true also 
of the churches in other cities and in the 
country. We quote from Ralph Waldo 
Trine in his book "In Tune with the Infin- 
ite," pages 170-172: 

"It is the type of preacher whose soul has 
never as yet even perceived the vital spirit 
of the teachings of Jesus, and who as a con- 
sequence instead of giving this to the people, 
is giving them old forms and dogmas and 
speculations, who is emptying our churches. 
This is the type whose chief efforts seem to 
be in getting men ready to die. The Ger- 
mans have a saying, Never go to the second 
thing first. We need men who will teach 
us first how to live. Living quite invariably 
preceeds dying. This is also true, that when 
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Cfje Beto Cfieologp 



we once know how to live, and live in ac- 
cordance with what we know, then the dy- 
ing, as we term it, will in a wonderfully, 
beautiful manner take care of itself. It is 
in fact the only way in which it can be taken 
care of. 

It is on account of this emptying of our 
churches, for the reason that the people are 
tiring of mere husks, that many short-sight- 
ed people are frequently heard to say that re- 
ligion is dying out. Religion dying out? 
How can anything die before it is really 
born? And so far as the people are con- 
cerned, religion is just being born, or rather 
they are just awakening to a vital, everday 
religion. We are just beginning to get be- 
yond the mere letter into its real, vital spirit. 
Religion dying out? Impossible, even to 
conceive of. Religion is as much a part of 
the human soul as the human soul is a part 
of God. And as long as God and the human 
soul exist, religion will never die. 

Much of the dogma, the form, the cere- 
mony, the mere letter that has stood as re- 
ligion, — and honestly many times, let us be 
fair enough to say, — this, thank God, is rap- 

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Cfie iQeto Cfieologg 



idly dying out, and never so rapidly as it is 
today. By two methods, it is dying. There 
is, first, a large class of people tired of, or 
even nauseated with it all, who conscientious- 
ly prefer to have nothing rather than this. 
They are simply abandoning it, the same as 
a tree abandons its leaves, when the early 
winter comes. There is, second, a large class 
in whom the Divine Breath is stirring, who 
are finding the Christ within in all its match- 
less beauty and redeeming power. And this 
new life is pushing off the old, the same as 
in the spring the newly awakened life in the 
tree pushes off the old, lifeless leaves that 
have clung on during the winter, to make 
place for the new ones. And the way this 
old dead leaf religion is being pushed off on 
every hand is indeed most interesting and 
inspiring to witness. 

Let the places of those who have been 
emptying our churches by reason of their 
attempts to give stones for bread, husks and 
chaff for the life-giving grain, let their places 
be taken even for but a few times by those 
who are open and alive to these higher in- 
spirations, and then let us again question 

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those who feel that religion is dying out. 
"It is the live coal that kindles others, not 
the dead." Let their places be taken by 
those who have caught the inspiration of the 
Divine Breath, who as a consequence have 
a message of mighty value and import for 
the people, who by virtue of this same fact 
are able to present it with a beauty and a 
power so enrapturing that it takes captive 
the soul. 

Then we will find that the churches that 
today, are dotted here and there, with a, 
few dozen people will be filled to overflowr 
ing, and there will not be even room enough 
for all who would enter. "Let the shell 
perish that the pearl may appear." We 
need no new revelations as yet. We need 
simply to find the vital spirit of those we al- 
ready have. Then in due time, when we are 
ready for them, new ones will come, but not 
before." 

The people are not tired of religion, but 
they are tired of the old theology. Tired 
of the cant; tired of the insincerity. 

Ex-Governor John P. St. John, of Kansas 
said, a few years ago, that he addressed a 
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congregation, on Sunday evening, of one 
thousand men and six women. That was 
in the penitentiary. The next Wednesday 
evening he addressed a congregation of fif- 
ty-six women and four men. That was in 
a church prayer-meeting. He said, "Judg- 
ing from these statements, there would not 
be enough men in Heaven to sing bass." 

But this condition of things is changing 
some. In Chicago, in some of our churches, 
we have almost as many men as women. The 
women have been at work during the week 
in the department stores, in the offices, in the 
factories, etc., and are tired, and they can- 
not get out to the morning services. But, 
in the places where the old theology is aban- 
doned, and the new theology preached, we 
have as many or more men than women. 
The pastor of the Central Church, Chicago, 
Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus, has the largest protes- 
tant congregation, possibly, in the United 
States, five thousand, and he is thoroughly 
up to date — religiously and theologically. 

The Apostle Peter said, "We look for 
new Heaven and the new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness." The new Heavens 



Cfie iQeto Cfteologg 



and the new earth have already come. I£ 
Peter was to return to the earth today, he 
would not be able to recognize it. He would 
be able to see but very little of the old earth 
that he left, and less of the old Heavens. 
He would see a condition in which dwelleth 
righteousness, such as never before existed 
in the earth. He would see Christian men 
and women so far in advance of the apostles 
that there is no comparison. Jesus said that 
there was none born of woman greater than 
John the Baptist, but that the least in the 
Kingdom of Heaven was greater than John. 
Then, what would he say of the greatest in 
the Kingdom, in this twentieth century, 
measured by service ! The Apostles would 
be small men compared with Henry Ward 
Beecher, David Swing, Bishop Simpson, 
Bishop Nind, and many others who have 
passed over to their reward, and many 
others now living that we might name. One 
of the most astonishing things to me, is that 
the apostles should live with Jesus for 
three years, and work with him, and 
yet not be able to comprehend or 
know him. When Jesus was cruci- 
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fied they were disappointed, bewildered. 
They thought Jesus was a failure, and, as 
one has said, u there were eleven men out of 
a job"; and Peter said, let us go back to 
our fishing business. But after Jesus was 
arisen, and the Holy Spirit was given them, 
they began to comprehend the situation. And 
yet, the very first blunder they made was, af- 
ter the spirit was given, in attempting to 
form a socialism, in which they would have 
all things in common. Jesus never author- 
ized any such thing, and they found their 
mistake and abandoned their social ideas. 
In their three years' work and association 
with Jesus, they failed to know him. In that 
wonderful talk He had with them, his last 
talk, in which He tried to explain to them 
who he was; that he was God manifest in 
the flesh, — when he said, "I and my Father 
are one," they could not comprehend. And 
Phillip said to Him, "Lord show us the 
Father and that will suffice" — that will make 
it plain. But Jesus said, "Have I been so 
long time with you, and yet hast thou not 
known me, Phillip. He that hath seen me, 
hath seen the Father, and how saith thou 



C6e iQeto C&eologp 



then, show us the Father?" — "If you can- 
not believe my words, believe my works." 
He might have said, 'I have opened the eyes 
of the blind, I have made the deaf to hear 
and the lame to walk, and even raised the 
dead; believe the works.' But they failed 
to believe, Phillip was not the only one of 
the disciples who failed to believe. He was 
not the only one of the eleven who failed to 
see the Father through the Son. It was only 
a few hours after this talk that they all for- 
sook him and fled. Thomas never did see 
the Father, through the Christ, until he put 
his finger into the print of the nails and thrust 
his hand into his side, and said, "My Lord 
and my God!" He then saw the Father. 
There are many people who never see the 
Father, until they see the print of the nails 
and the bleeding side of the Christ. Then 
they can see the Father. The best concep- 
tion we can possibly get of God is through 
the Christ. "He that hath seen me, hath 
seen the Father." He that hath seen good- 
ness, hath seen the Father. He that hath 
seen Love, hath seen the Father. He that 
hath seen kindness, and gentleness, and pa- 
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C&e iQeio C&eologg 



tience, and loveliness, hath seen the Father. 
This will be, to us, as much of the Father 
as we will ever be able to see on this earth. 
"In that day ye shall know that I am in my 
Father, and ye in me and I in you." Thus 
we, too, are linked together with the Son 
and with the Father. Is that a new Theol- 
ogy to you, my brother layman? It is 
blessed. It is glorious. In "that day ye shall 
know, that I am in my Father and ye in me 
and I in you." In what day? In the day 
you subscribed to a creed? Oh no! The 
day that the comforter comes into your lives. 
In that day that the spirit of truth comes into 
our lives, to lead us into all truth. In that 
day when the Holy Ghost, comes into our 
lives, to be our guest, to abide with us, — 
not simply during a revival season, not only 
during a season of bereavement and sorrow, 
when we need him so much — and he always 
comes in our need, — but He will abide with 
us forever. He will be our teacher. He will 
teach us, all things, and bring all things to 
our remembrance whatsoever He has said 
unto us heretofore." Things that He hath 
said unto us through the written word,, 

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through our pastor, through our brothers or 
sisters, through the church ; little things that 
we have forgotten, big things that we are un- 
able to grasp, truth that our capacities were 
not sufficiently enlarged to receive. He will 
bring these things to our remembrance, and 
help us to comprehend. He will lead us into 
all Truth, just in proportion as we acquire 
the capacity to receive it; in proportion as 
we grow into the knowledge of the Father 
and the Son. What a wonderful teacher this 
is! What a lovely guest to have in our 
homes ! He will not be in the way, as some 
of your other guests are sometimes. If you 
lose your temper, (which we all do some- 
times), and get a little ugly, He will excuse 
himself and retire. He will not force him- 
self on you, as your guest; but, as soon as 
you see how ugly you have been, he will come 
back and go right along with his teaching 
and His help. 

Then he will give you peace; peace that 
the world cannot give; peace, rest, satisfac- 
tion that no other Teacher can give you. But 
this peace will come after your little conflicts, 
after your big conflicts, — after the battle. 

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You will always have your battles to fight, 
all through life. But this guest, this teacher, 
this help, will always be with you, if you need 
him, and he will give you victory and peace 
— after the battle. When Jesus himself went 
out into that forty days battle, in the wilder- 
ness, peace came after the conflict was over; 
and the "Angels of Peace came and minis- 
tered unto Him." 

Now I want to ask my brother layman did 
ever such peace come to you, such love come 
to you, such a Teacher come to you, because 
you believed God was angry with all the 
world, and had a great conflict with evil, 
the evil one, with the evil that he had cre- 
ated? For He created the evil and the good. 
We have spoken of this in the chapter on 
good and evil. Did ever such peace, and 
love, and light come to you because you be- 
lieved that you and your loved ones might 
possibly some time get into the hands of an 
angry God, and get into an endless burning 
Hell, to be there through all eternity in end- 
less torment? How much real comfort has 
ever come to you through the old theology? 
How about your best conception of God 

a 1 



C&e JSeto C&eologg 



through the old theology? We shall have 
something to say about the best conceptions 
of God, from Adam up to the present time, 
in another chapter. "He that hath seen me, 
hath seen the Father." 

We hear a good deal, now and then, about 
the "Old Time Religion," — and from men 
who are unable to grasp the new theology 
and never did understand the old theology. 
The old time religion is gone never to re- 
turn. When I was a boy, sixty-five years 
ago (that was the time I commenced to study 
theology — the Presbyterian shorter cate- 
chism) we lived about half way between two 
old time church buildings, about forty rods 
from each. The one was a Methodist Epis- 
copal, and the other an Associate Reformed 
Presbyterian. Sunday morning, (Sabbath, 
we called it then) the Associate Reformed 
Presbyterians would assemble early, bring 
their lunch baskets with them, and have two 
sermons — with lunch between. Old time re- 
ligion. They were very strict Sabbatar- 
ians, — under the old Jewish idea, one day 
for God; six days for Self. The Methodists 
had received some very crude ideas about 
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Cfie J3eto Cfteologg 



the Holy Ghost, enough to make them very 
happy occasionally; and Sunday night, we 
could hear them shouting clear down to our 
house. The Associate Reformed Presbyter- 
ians were not allowed to go to hear the 
Methodists preach, especially on the Sabbath. 
We might occasionally go to hear them on 
a week day, or night. But to sing their 
abominable hymns was almost the ''unpar- 
donable sin." We used the "inspired 
psalmody." This was the old time religion. 
But, if our good shouting Methodist brother 
and our good, strict Sabbatarian Presbyter- 
ian brother were to meet any time during the 
week — "The six days for self and trade 
horses, both would get cheated, — for each 
would misrepresent his own horse. The old 
time religion. There was a strife, and in 
some cases a bitter strife, between the differ- 
ent denominations. A strife to get men and 
women into their church. This, too, is pass- 
ing away with the old theology. Just in pro- 
portion as they realize that the true work of 
all the churches is to get men and women 
into the Kingdom. Paul says, the "Kingdom 
of God is not meat and drink, but righteous- 

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ness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." 
It is not a place. It is a condition. It is 
within you. It is in our midst ; in this brother 
and in that brother. It is a condition, or life, 
into which we must be born. "Except a man 
be born again he cannot enter into the King- 
dom of Heaven." He cannot enter into the 
new life, — this life of righteousness, and 
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Not a 
kingdom beyond the sky; but a kingdom here, 
on this earth, in this life, — the new "earth 
in which dwelleth righteousness. Jesus came 
that we might have life. A more abundant 
life, a better life; not beyond the skies, but 
here, in this life. "What will it profit a 
man if he gain the whole world, and lose 
his life? or what will a man give in ex- 
change for his life?" When? Here, this 
life. "Except ye eat the flesh and drink the 
blood of the Son of man, of the Christ, ye 
have no life in you." Christianity is a life, 
not a creed. We must be partakers of the 
life of the Christ. When? In this life. "In 
that day ye shall know that I am the Father, 
and ye in me, and I in you." We must be 
able to comprehend the unity of the Father 

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and the Son, and the brotherhood. The old 
theology that we are sheep, that u the Lord 
is my Shepherd," was good in its day. Gave 
comfort. But that, the Lord is my Father, 
is better. 

Jesus was crucified because he said he was 
the Son of God. That was very offensive 
to the Jews. And the Apostles, who failed 
to comprehend Jesus when he tried to ex- 
plain to them this relationship, — the Father- 
hood, the Sonship and the Brotherhood, — i 
the unity, — being Jews themselves, could not 
realize the truth of His words, and did the 
best they could to Judaize the sayings of the 
Christ. The Apostle Mark, believing in the 
divinity of Jesus, but not yet being able to 
comprehend the divinity of man, writing his 
Gospel to the Gentiles, uses the expression, 
"Kingdom of God"; but Matthew, writing 
his Gospel to the Jews, who were so partic- 
ular about the use of the word "God" and 
had crucified Jesus because he said he was 
God, would say, "Kingdom of Heaven," — 
the one saying "For of such is the Kingdom 
of Heaven," and the other saying, "For of 
such is the Kingdom of God," to express the 

9i 



C6e J3eto Cfieologp 



same thing. Jesus, knowing their inability 
to comprehend Him, said to them, "I have 
yet many things to say to you, but you can- 
not hear them now." 

I am aware that the best men in many of 
the churches, Protestant and Catholic, are 
abandoning the old theology; but their 
church creeds and confession of faith still 
endorse the old theology. I now quote from 
the Presbyterian Confession of Faith. This 
confession of faith is the acknowledged au- 
thority with the various branches of the Pres- 
byterian church. 

"Chapter 3 of God's Eternal Degrees": 

"Decree 1. — God from all Eternity did, 
by the most wise and holy counsel, of his 
own will, freely and unchangeably ordained 
whatsoever comes to pass : yet, so as thereby 
neither is God the author of sin, nor is vio- 
lence offered to the will of the creatures, nor 
is the liberty or contingency of the second 
causes taken away, but rather established. 

"Decree 2. — Although God knows what- 
soever may or can come to pass upon all sup- 
posed conditions; yet, hath He not decreed 
anything because He foresaw it as future, 

26 



Cfte iQeto Cfteologp 



as that which would come to pass upon such 
conditions. 

"Decree 3. — By the decree of God, for 
the manifestation of His Glory, some men, 
and angels, are predestinated unto everlast- 
ing life and others foreordained to everlast- 
ing death. 

"Decree 4. — These angels, and men, thus 
predestinated and foreordained, are partic- 
ularly and unchangeably designed; and their 
number is so certain and definite that it can- 
not be either increased or diminished. 

"Decree 5. — Those of mankind that are 
predestinated unto life, God, before the 
foundation of the world was laid, according 
to His eternal and immutable purpose, and 
the secret counsel and good pleasure of His 
will, hath chosen in Christ, unto everlasting 
glory, out of his mere free grace and love, 
without any foresight of faith or good 
works, or perseverance in either of them, or 
any other thing in the creature, as conditions 
or causes moving Him thereunto; and all 
for the praise of His glorious grace. 

"Decree 6. — As God hath appointed the 
elect unto Glory, so hath He, by the eternal 

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and most free purpose of His will, foreor- 
dained all the means thereunto. Wherefore 
they who are elected, being fallen in Adam, 
are redeemed by Christ, are effectually called 
unto faith, in Christ, by his spirit working in 
due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, 
and kept by his power through faith unto 
salvation. Neither are any other redeemed 
by Christ, effectually called, justified, 
adopted, sanctified and saved, but the elect 
only. 

"Decree 7. — The rest of mankind, God 
was pleased, according to the unsearchable 
counsel of his own will, whereby he ex- 
tendeth or withholdeth mercy as He pleaseth 
for the glory of his sovereign power over 
his creatures, to pass by and to ordain them 
to dishonor and wrath for their sin, to the 
praise of his glorious justice. 

"Decree 8. — The doctrine of this high 
mystery of predestination is to be handled 
with special prudence and care, that men at- 
tending the will of God revealed in his word 
and yielding obedience thereunto, may, from 
the certainty of their effectual vocation, be 
assured of their eternal election. So shall 

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this doctrine afford matter of praise, rever- 
ence, and admiration of God; and of human- 
ity, diligence, and abundant consolation to all 
that sincerely obey the Gospel. 

"Chapter 10. — Effectual Calling. (Sec. 
3, page 57.) Elect infants, dying in infancy, 
are regenerated and saved by Christ through 
the spirit, who worketh when and where he 
pleaseth and how he pleaseth. So also are 
all other elect persons who are incapable of 
being outwardly called by the ministry of the 
world. 

u Sec. 4. — Others not elected, although 
they may be called by the ministry of the 
world, and may have common operations of 
the spirit, yet they never truly come to Christ 
and therefore cannot be saved; much less 
can men, not professing the Christian re- 
ligion, be saved in any other way whatsoever, 
be they never so diligent to frame their lives 
according to the light of nature, and the law 
of that religion they do profess ; and to as- 
sert and maintain that they may is very per- 
nicious and to be detested." 

We have quoted the above articles in the 
Presbyterian Confession of Faith so that we 

99 



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may not be chargeable with misrepresenting 
Presbyterianism. I am aware that many 
Presbyterians look upon this confession of 
faith as a dead letter, and are not expected 
to believe it. A Presbyterian minister said 
to me, only a few days ago, that he had 
ceased to believe in endless punishment 
twenty years ago. A Presbyterian elder said 
to me recently, that he did not believe in the 
doctrine of endless punishment, and but few 
Presbyterians did. But this is the law of 
their church, and of the various branches of 
the Presbyterian faith. 

Infant Damnation. — Non-elect damna- 
tion. Endless torment. Infants in hell. 
Children in hell. Sweet little babies in hell. 
Innocence, purity, love, confidence, trust, 
faith, — all burning in hell. Little children! 
"For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven!" 
If you have seen innocence, purity, love, 
faith, confidence, trust — you have seen the 
Father. "He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father." Why, you might as well think 
of Jesus in hell as the sweet little innocent 
baby. I am glad that Jesus came as a baby : 
the Jews did not expect him to come that 
[IOO 



C6e jQeto C&eologg 



way, hence no wonder they rejected Him. 
I can adore, worship, the child Jesus. I 
adore love, purity, innocence, sinliness, con- 
fidence, faith, trust. I adore the boy Jesus, 
who has taught us by His example, that we, 
too, should be "about our Father's business." 
I adore the man Christ Jesus, — the manly 
man, the sympathetic man, the lovable man, 
the man who can weep with us when we 
weep, and rejoice with us when we rejoice; 
the man who can be touched with the feeling 
of our infirmities, who was in all points 
tempted as we are, yet sinned not. I adore 
the divine man, Christ Jesus, — who knows 
our frame and remembers that we are dust; 
the divine man, Christ Jesus, who has re- 
vealed unto us our divinity — the Fatherhood, 
the Sonship, and the Brotherhood: "In 
that day we shall know that I am in the 
Father and ye in me, and I in you." 

I love the Presbyterians; I was raised 
among them, and now want to testify that 
there are no better Christian people in the 
world — they are much better than their 
theology, and I am glad that so many of 
them are abandoning the old theology. Most 
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Cfte JSeto Cfteologp 



of the United Presbyterians sing hymns now, 
elegantly, — and find more inspiration in them 
than they did in the inspired psalmody. 

Postion of the Baptist Church: What the 
great Charles H. Spurge on says on the doc- 
trine of endless punishment: I feel that I 
have a right to say something about this 
grand old church as I was once a member of 
the Baptist Church. I left the United Pres- 
byterian church and united with the Baptist 
church forty-one years ago. I had been a 
member but a few weeks when the church 
offered to license me to preach. I said, No; 
that is not my work. One year later, the 
church, without my knowledge or consent, 
licensed me to preach. I said to the pastor, 
"What does this mean?" The pastor of the 
church replied that "the church thought it 
should do its duty, whether you would do 
yours or not." One year later the church 
appointed a meeting to ordain me as an 
elder, to preach; and I declined, on the 
grounds that I did not feel that I was called 
to do that work. For a few years I thought 
that the Baptist church was about the only 
church that was right theologically. But as 

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I continued to grow, I found that there were 
some things of more importance than Bap- 
tism and close communion or church gov- 
ernment. Four years later I united with the 
Methodist Episcopal church, and have been 
a lay-member of that church nearly ever 
since. When I came to Chicago in 1898, I 
united with the Moody church, and two years 
later, locating near the Grace M. E., I 
changed my membership from the Moody to 
the Grace Methodist Episcopal, in which I 
hold membership to-day. I love the Baptist 
people. I got much help from the Baptist 
church, and shall never forget the lovable 
Christian men and women of that faith. I 
was a great admirer of the great preacher, 
Spurgeon, of London, and bought six vol- 
umes of his sermons. Some of these ser- 
mons I should decline to read to-day, or al- 
low, a child to read them. I quote the fol- 
lowing from these sermons, on the subject 
of Endless Torment: 

"There is a real fire in hell, as truly as 
you have now a real body, a fire exactly like 
that which we have on earth in everything 
except this: That it will not consume, 

I0 3, 



C6e H2eto Cfteolojp 



though it will torture you. You have seen 
the asbestos lying in the fire red-hot; but 
when you take it out, it is unconsumed. So 
your body will be prepared by God in such 
a way that it will burn forever without be- 
ing consumed. It will lie, not as you con- 
sider, in metaphorical fire, but in actual 
flames. Did our Saviour mean fictions when 
he said that he would cast body and soul into 
Hell? What should there be a pit for if 
there were no bodies ? Why fire, why chains, 
if there were to be no bodies? Can fire 
touch the soul? Can pits shut in spirits? 
Can chains fetter souls? No; pits and fires 
and chains are for bodies, and bodies shall 
be there. Thou wilt sleep in the dust for a 
little while. When thou diest, thy soul will 
be tormented alone, — that will be a hell for 
it, — but at the judgment day thy body will 
join thy soul; and then thou wilt have twin 
hells. Body and soul shall be together, each 
brim full of pain, thy soul sweating in its in- 
most pore, drops of blood, and thy body 
from head to foot suffused with agony; con- 
science, judgment, memory, all tortured; 
but more, thy head tormented with racking 
1I04 



Cfie iQeto Cfieologg 



pains, thine eyes staring from their sockets 
with sights of blood and woe, thine ears tor- 
mented with 

'Sullen moans and hollow groans, 
And shrieks of tortured ghosts' ; 

thine heart beating high with fever,: 'thy 
pulse rattling at an enormous rate of agony, 
thine limbs cracking like the martyrs in the 
fire, and yet unburnt; thyself put in a vessel 
of hot oil, painted, yet coming out unde- 
stroyed; all thy veins becoming a road for 
the hot feet of pain to travel on; every 
nerve a string on which the devil shall ever 
play his diabolical tune of hell's unutterable 
lament; thy soul forever and ever aching, 
and thy body palpitating in unison with thy 
soul. Fiction, sir? Again, I say, they are 
not fictions, and, as God liveth, but solid, 
stern truth. If God be true, what I have 
said is the truth; and you will find it one 
day to be so." 

This is how Mr. Spurgeon talked to his 
Baptist people less than fifty years ago. This 
was the theology of fifty years ago, the old 
theology. 

?°5; 



Cfie JSeto Cfieologp 



Now, I will take the great Baptist Uni- 
versity of Chicago — founded by these two 
great Baptists — the great Baptist scholar 
and theologian, William Rainey Harper, 
and the great Baptist layman, John D. 
Rockefeller, the most influential Baptist lay- 
man in the world, financially — and I will 
risk this statement: That there is not a 
single professor in this great university that 
believes in the doctrine of endless torment as 
described by the great preacher, Charles H. 
Spurgeon. I believe if Mr. Spurgeon was 
alive to-day he would correct his theology. 

I have great admiration for the late Dr. 
Harper, knowing him personally and inti- 
mately from his boyhood, knowing the nar- 
rowness of the theology and religious ideas 
under which he spent his boyhood days and 
his college days, and knowing the struggle 
that he had to come up out of these environ- 
ments into the clear sunlight of the twentieth 
century theology. His first break from 
United Presbyterianism, the faith into which 
he was born and baptized, into the Baptist 
faith. This must have taken quite a struggle 
in his boyhood days, then only about twenty 
[106 



Cfte iQeto Cfteologp 



years old. In those days there was not 
much in common between the Baptists and 
United Presbyterians. I know what this 
struggle meant, as I made the same change, 
only a few years before, in my religious 
opinions. But the great university founded by 
these two great Baptists, cannot now even be 
held as a Baptist university, but has become 
non-sectarian, — a university now seeking the 
truth in science, in literature, in religion; 
recognizing the fact that "Jesus is the way, 
the truth, and the life, and that He who 
would save his life shall lose it, but whoso- 
ever will lose his life for the truth's sake 
shall find it." A grander, larger, better life. 
The future of this great university depends 
only on the loyalty to which it stands by the 
truth, no difference how badly it shatters 
former beliefs. 

The Roman Catholic Church: There are 
many things that I admire in this grand old 
church, but none more than their better con- 
ceptions of God and the Christ than they had 
even fifty years ago. I mean the rank and 
file, or the lay membership. Of course the 
Pope is constantly warning his church against 
:i07 



Cfie H9eto Cfteologg 



what he calls liberalism, and will continue 
to warn it, — but the truth will not be bound 
much longer. The intelligence of the lay 
members is greatly in advance of what it was 
even fifty years ago, — yes, even twenty years 
ago. They will not much longer allow the 
Pope and the church to do their thinking for 
them. 

This great church has held her people in 
spiritual bondage for centuries, through fear 
from endless torment depicted by their 
priests, for financial and spiritual gain; men 
and women who never read the bible, and 
know nothing about it except what they get 
from the priest. Here is a specimen of their 
talk to children. We quote from a book 
written and published by the Rev. Arthur 
Chambers, associate of King's College, 
Vicar of Brockenhurst, Hampshire, England, 
an extract from "The Sight of Hell," by 
Rev. J. Furniss, C. S. S. R., Premissu 
Superorum: 

"Little child, if you go to hell, there will 

be a devil at your side to strike you. He 

will go on striking you every minute forever 

and ever without stopping. The first stroke 

108 



Cfie jQeto Cfieologg 



will make your body as bad as the body of 
Job, covered from head to foot with sores 
and ulcers. The second stroke will make 
your body twice as bad as the body of Job. 
The third stroke will make your body three 
times as bad as the body of Job. The fourth 
stroke will make your body four times as bad 
as the body of Job. How, then, will your 
body be, after the devil has been striking it 
every moment for a hundred million of years 
without stopping? Perhaps, at this moment, 
seven o'clock in the evening, a child is just 
going into hell. To-morrow evening, at 
seven o'clock, go and knock at the gates of 
hell, and ask what the child is doing. They 
will come back again and say: 'The child is 
burning.' Go in a week and ask what the 
child is doing. You will get the same an- 
swer: 'It is burning.' Go in a year and 
ask. The same answer comes : 'It is burn- 
ing.' Go in a million years and ask the same 
question. The answer is just the same: 'It 
is burning.' So, if you will go forever and 
ever, you will always get the same answer: 
'It is burning in the fire.' " 

We have no hesitancy in saying that such 
109 



Cfte H3eto Cfieologg 



teachings of children should be prohibited 
by law. Nothing could be more blighting, 
and damnable, to the mind of a bright, lov- 
ing child, than to give it such a conception of 
God. We have laws prohibiting the publi- 
cation of vicious and obscene literature, and 
we can conceive of nothing more vicious 
than the above. We ought to apologize to 
our readers for giving it a place in this book, 
but we do it only that our readers may be 
able to see the monstrous doctrine of end- 
less torment in all its hideousness. Children 
in hell, burning — little children burning, 
eternally burning! "For of such is the king- 
dom of Heaven." Righteousness and peace, 
and joy in the Holy Ghost, burning. Love 
burning ! Innocence burning ! ! Purity burn- 
ing ! ! ! Take away the money that comes to 
the Roman Catholic Church through this 
fear of burning, and through their exagger- 
ated doctrines of purgatory, and you would 
wreck their church financially, but save it 
spiritually. "He that would lose his life for 
the truth's sake will find it." 



no 



RELIGION. 



What is Religion? According to Webster 
(i) "Religion, in a comprehensive sense, in- 
cludes, a belief in the Being and perfections 
of God, in the revelation of his will to man, 
in man's obligation to obey his commands, 
in a state of reward and punishment, and in 
man's accountableness to God; and also true 
godliness or piety of life, with practice of all 
moral duties." (2) "Religion, as distinct 
from theology, is godliness, or real piety in 
practice, — consisting in the performance of 
all known duties to God and our fellowmen 
in obedience to divine command, or from 
love to God and His law." (3) "Any sys- 
tem of faith and worship is religion — 
Buddhism, Paganism, Brahamism, Chris- 
tianity." The sooner we learn that Chris- 
tianity does not contain all the true religion 
in the world the better for us. 
in 



Cfte H3eiu Cfieologg 



What is the true religion? And who 
has the true religion? My answer is, YOU. 
Every man, who has religion according to 
the above definitions, thinks, or believes, that 
his is the true religion; and so it is, if he is 
true to himself and his God. Now, under- 
stand me. Peter emphasizes this truth when 
he says : u Of a truth, I perceive that God is 
no respector of persons. But in every na- 
tion he that feareth Him and worketh right- 
eousness is accepted with Him." No re- 
spector of persons. God is not the God of 
the Jews, or the Hebrews, or Christians, or 
Hindus, only, — but in every nation those who 
fear, or love Him are accepted with Him. 
Fear and love of God constitutes religion, 
and every man that has this fear and love 
and worship has true religion. It is about 
time that we Christians, men and women, 
were able to comprehend the truth of Peter's 
statement, that "God is no respector of per- 
sons. " God loves all of His children. He 
knows what is best for His children in every 
nation, in every condition, under all the en- 
vironments that surround them. 

Religion is a growth. All the various re- 
112 



Cfte lOeto Cfieologg 



ligions of the earth have had their birth, and 
their growth, — and many of them their de- 
cay and death. Buddhism, in some respects, 
is an outgrowth of Brahamism. Brahamism 
is an outgrowth of Vedaism. Hinduism is 
an outgrowth of Buddhism. And nearly all 
these old religions owe their existence to the 
sacred writings called the "Vide Scriptures" 
("Vedic Sanhitas") — a belief in God. 

When God first placed man in this earth, 
(whether according to the Mosiac account) 
or any other of the various accounts of crea- 
tion, man was an infant, a child, in respect 
to his knowledge of God, or in respect to the 
worship of God. He had to grow into this 
knowledge. According to the Hebrew re- 
ligion, he was first taught to worship God by 
giving God something. By sacrifice. By 
giving the first fruit, or the best he could 
give, either of the fruits of his flocks or his 
lands. And as man continued to grow, or 
develop, he learned that God did not care 
for the sacrifices of burnt offerings, but pre- 
ferred the sacrifices of a broken heart or con- 
trite spirit, — thus growing into the better 
knowledge of his Maker. But mankind's 

"3 



Cfte I3eto C&eologp 



childlike capacities were so limited that it 
took God a long time to reveal Himself to 
them. He could only come to them in terms 
that they could comprehend. He taught 
them that He was to them a refuge, a place 
of safety, a high tower, a sun and a shield, 
a shepherd, a king, a ruler, a sovereign. 
They could understand these terms. They 
wanted help of some kind. But it took them 
a long time to learn that He was their 
Father. In fact the larger portion of the 
world cannot comprehend that to-day. It 
took four thousand years of uplifting — or, 
if you please, evoluting — to enable the world 
to realize that God is our Father. He had 
to send Buddha into the world to reveal the 
brotherhood of man and charity, love, five 
hundred years before He sent Jesus. He 
had to send Jesus into the world to reveal 
the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood 
of man — and for two thousand years men 
have been struggling with their limited ca- 
pacities, unable to fully comprehend what it 
means. Buddha was sent of God into the 
world five hundred years before Jesus was 
sent. When Buddha came, the world was 
114 



Cfte I3eto Cbeologp 



dominated by priests, by caste, by greed, and 
Buddha advocated the principle of the 
brotherhood of man in this life, — that desire, 
and ambition, and greed, and caste in this 
life should be destroyed. And Buddha set 
the example by giving up his position, his 
kingly power, his riches, his pleasures, and 
taking up the life of the very poorest of men, 
the beggar, for His Truth's sake. It was this 
that brought Buddha his success, not the un- 
desirable doctrine of reincarnation. 

We said that Buddha was sent of God. 
Understand me. Every man that ever came 
into the world was sent of God. No man 
ever came into this world of his own accord. 
He was sent of God. Most of us don't 
know why we were sent. Moses never 
knew why he was sent until after he was 
eighty years old. To illustrate : John Bun- 
yan's father was sent of God, not especially 
to be a tinker, but to be the father of John 
Bunyan. There was a man "sent from God 
whose name was John." He was sent to 
bear witness of the Christ. There was a 
man sent from God whose name was Moses 
1 — sent to lead the Israelites out of bondage. 

US 



Cfte H3eto Cfjeologg 



There was a man sent from God whose name 
was Lincoln, — sent to lead the black man 
out of slavery in the United States. There 
was a man sent from God whose name was 
Roosevelt, — sent to be the father of Theo- 
dore Roosevelt. There was a man sent from 
God whose name was Harper, — sent to bear 
witness of the Christ, also sent to be the 
father of William Rainey Harper. We 
might multiply these examples of men sent 
of God indefinitely, but this will suffice. 

The world was not prepared for Jesus 
when Buddha was sent. Buddha advocated 
the brotherhood of man, but was not en- 
lightened in regard to the fatherhood of 
God. The secrets of his success were the ad- 
vacacy of the brotherhood, charity, love, liv- 
ing for each other and helping each other. 
Buddha was the most successful founder of 
a system of religion that the world has ever 
seen. Even the Christian church, both Greek 
and Roman, honor Buddha. We quote from 
Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 12, page 
784: 

"The first great solvent of Brahmanism 
116 



C6e iQeto Cfieologg 



was the teaching of Buddha. The life of 
this celebrated man has three sides — its 
personal aspects, its legendary developments, 
and its religious consequences upon mankind. 
In his own person Buddha appears as a 
prince and preacher in ancient India. In the 
legendary developments of history, Buddha 
ranks as a divine teacher among his follow- 
ers; as an incarnation of Vishnu among the 
Hindus, and apparently as a saint of the 
Christian church, with a day assigned to 
him in both the Greek and Roman calendars. 
As a religious founder, he left behind him a 
system of beliefs which has gained more 
disciples than any other creed in the world, 
and which, after a lapse of twenty-four cen- 
turies, is now professed by five hundred mil- 
lions of people, or more than one-third of 
the human race." 

There are many things in Common be- 
tween Christianity and Buddhaism. Both 
claim the miraculous conception and birth of 
their founder. Both came, advocating the 
brotherhood of all men, love, charity, faith, 
consecration, and devotion to their system of 

^7 



C&e Ji3eto C&eologg 



salvation. Both advocated a pure, clean, 
consecrated life. Buddha lived that men 
might die and be reincarnated into a better 
life beyond this life. Jesus died that men 
might live a better life, in this life. He came 
that we might have life, — a more abundant 
life, a better, grander life, in this life. 
Buddha lived that men might die better. 
Jesus died that men might live better. 
Buddha advocated transmigration of the 
soul after death. Jesus taught the incarna- 
tion of God and the Christ in us, and that 
we live because He lives in us. Buddha 
could not comprehend God, the Father. 
Jesus reveals to us that "He is in the Father 
and we in Him, and He in us." 

Buddha had his twelve disciples. Jesus 
had his twelve disciples. Buddha had his 
beloved disciple, Ananda. Jesus had his be- 
loved disciple, John. When Buddha was 
five months old, "five wise men, who were 
journeying northward through the air," 
miraculously came down to where the child 
was, and worshipped him. When Jesus was 
born, "The wise men came from the East" — 
"came into the house and saw the young 
118 



C&e JOeto Cfteologg 



child with Mary, His mother, and they fell 
down and worshipped Him." 

Buddha gave up all that most men value — 
w T ealth, pleasure, kingly inheritance, to be- 
come a beggar, — sharing the toils and trials 
of the poorest of men. 

Jesus left his throne in Heaven and took 
upon Himself the form of the poorest of 
men, not having where to lay His head. 

"Buddha came to establish a kingdom of 
righteousness, to give light to those en- 
shrouded in darkness and to open the gates 
of immortality to men." 

Jesus came that we might have life, a 
more abundant life, and to establish the 
kingdom of heaven on earth. 

Buddha fails to restore life. (Britannica, 
Vol. IV, pages 430-43 1 ) : 

"On another occasion he is said to have 
brought back to her right mind a young 
mother whom sorrow for a time deprived of 
reason. Her name was Kisagotami. She 
had been married early, as is the custom of 
the East, and had a child when she was still 
a girl. When the beautiful boy could run 

;n9: 



C6e JSeto Cfieologg 



alone he died. The young girl in her love 
for it carried the dead child clasped to her 
bosom, and went from house to house of her 
pitying friends, asking them to give her medi- 
cine for it. But a Buddhist convert, thinking 
'she does not understand/ said to her: 'My 
good girl, I myself have no such medicine 
as you ask for, but I think I know of one 
who has.' 'Oh, tell me who that is?' said 
Kisagotami. 'The Buddha can give you 
medicine; go to him,' was the answer. She 
went to Gautama; and doing homage to him, 
said, 'Lord and master, do you know any 
medicine that will be good for my child?' 
'Yes, I know of some,' said the teacher. 
Now, it was the custom for patients or their 
friends to provide the herbs which the doctor 
required, so she asked what herbs he would 
want. 'I want some mustard seed,' he said; 
and when the poor girl eagerly promised to 
bring some of so common a drug, he added, 
'You must get it from some house where no 
son, or husband, or parent, or slave has 
died.' 'Very good/ she said; and went to 
ask for it, still carrying her dead child with 
her. The people said, 'Here is mustard 
120 



C&e J3eto Cfteologg 



seed, take it' ; but when she asked, 'In my 
friend's house has any son died, or a hus- 
band, or a parent, or slave?' They an- 
swered, 'Lady! what is this that you say? 
The living are few, but the dead are many/ 
Then she went to other houses, but one said, 
'I have lost a son,' another, 'We have lost 
our parents,' another, 'I have lost a slave.' 
At last, not being able to find a single house 
where no one had died, her mind began to 
clear, and summoning up resolution she left 
the dead body of her child in a forest, and 
returning to the Buddha paid him homage. 
He said to her, 'Have you the mustard 
seed?' 'My lord,' she replied, 'I have not; 
the people tell me that the living are few, 
but the dead are many.' Then he talked to 
her on that essential part of his system, the 
impermanency of all things, till her doubts 
were cleared away; she accepted her lot, be- 
came a disciple and entered the 'first path.' " 

"Jesus is the resurrection and the life." 
He raised the dead, opened the eyes of the 
blind and cleansed the lepers. Jesus is the 
resurrection and the life. 

121 



Cfie iQeto Cfieologg 



Here we have the sorrowing heart-broken 
young mother seeking life for her dead boy, 
— seeking comfort, seeking help; but she 
fails to receive anything but the cold uncom- 
forting truth that it cannot be helped, that 
death is the fate of all. No hope, no promise 
that she shall ever see her dead boy again. 
The love she has had for her child must 
die, must perish. The broken heart must be 
further crushed out; the very desire to see 
or continue to love her child must die with 
the child. This record says that Buddha 
"then talked to her of the impermanency of 
all things, the essential part of his system, 
till her doubts were cleared away, she ac- 
cepted her lot." Sorrowful lot, — without 
hope and without God in the world. This is 
the best Buddha could give. The brother- 
hood of man, and love and charity and good 
will in this life, — all of which must also per- 
ish and be forgotten, is as good as Buddha 
could give ; but it is a mockery, without the 
Fatherhood of God. 

How different with Jesus. When the two 
weeping heart-broken sisters came to Jesus 
with the faith, with the love, the trust "Lord, 

112 



Cfie H3eto Cfieologg 



if thou hadst been here my brother would 
not have died," and Jesus in His great love 
and sympathy, with tears coursing down His 
cheeks, said to them, "He shall live again." 
And with their great faith in the Son of 
God, they said, u Lord, we know he shall live 
in the resurrection"; but He only said, 
"Have faith." And coming to the grave He 
said to those present, "Roll ye away the 
stone"; looking into the open grave, He 
cried "with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, Lazarus, 
come forth'." A voice so loud that it has 
been heard around the world, and Jesus is 
now acknowledged to be the resurrection and 
the Life. 

Here the similarity between Buddha and 
Jesus ends. Buddha lived for men and died 
like a man. 

Jesus lived for God, and died like a God. 

Among the last words of Buddha were 
these (Encyclopedia Britannica) : "Theil 
turning to his disciples he said, 'When I have 
passed away and am no longer with you, do 
not think that the Buddha has left you, and 
is not still in your midst. You have my 
words, my explanations of the dee£ things 



C8e iQeto Cfieologp 



of truth, the laws I have laid down for the 
society; let them be your guide; the Buddha 
has not left you.' " 

Among the last words of Jesus were 
these. Talking to His disciples, He said: 

"I will not leave you comfortless, I will 
come to you." 

"In that day ye shall know that I am in 
my Father, and ye in me, and I in you." 

"I go to prepare a place for you." 

"In my Father's house are many man- 
sions. If it were not so I would have told 
you." 

"If a man love me, he will keep my word; 
and my Father will love him and we will 
come unto him, and make our abode with 
him." 

"He that Ioveth me not keepeth not my 
words; and the word which ye hear is not 
mine, but the Father's who sent me." 

These things have I spoken unto you, 
while yet abiding with you." 

"But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, 
whom the Father will send in my name, he 
shall teach you all things, and bring to your 
remembrance all that I said unto you." 

K 2.4 



Cfte iQeto Cfteologg 



These quotations are all from John's Gos- 
pel, and according to this record his last 
words were, "It is finished," and he bowed 
his head and gave up the Ghost. 

However, there is more in common be- 
tween Buddhaism and Christianity than 
there is between Judahism and Christianity. 
Buddhasim was founded on the brotherhood 
of man and charity to all. Christ came to 
reveal the Fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man. Judahism was founded 
on the principle that "Jehovah is the God of 
Israel, and Israel is the people of Jehovah." 
Israel, apparently, had no conception of the 
Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of 
man. Israel worshipped a God who would 
bless them and curse their enemies. The 
Jews crucified, rejected the Christ because 
he revealed the Fatherhood of God and the 
brotherhood of man. The Jewish church of 
to-day has nothing in common with the 
church that Jesus said he would build or 
grow, — a church built upon the rock of con- 
fession, .... "and the gates of hell 
shall not be able to prevail against it." The 
Brahmo-Somaj of India is much more in 
125 



Ctie Beta Cfieologp 



line with Christianity than the Jewish church 
of the nineteenth century. See pages 160 — 
r i63 of this book, where we quote the doc- 
trine of Brahmo-Somaj (Brama-Samage) 
church of religion. 

At the present time Theosophy is trying 
to make itself felt among the various re- 
ligions of the world, though not claiming to 
be a religion, but its founders claim "That 
the best interests of religion and science 
would be promoted by the revival of Sans- 
krit, Pali, Zend, and other ancient literature, 
in which the sages and Initiates had pre- 
served, for the use of mankind, truths of the 
highest value respecting man and nature." 
It would have us go back three thousand 
years to dig up dead thought; thought that 
has been dead all these years. Thought that 
has had its day, and served its time and 
passed into its grave, and been buried. Let 
it sleep. Truth never dies; although 
crushed it will rise again. Error only dies 
amid its worshippers. It is a good thing to 
let the dead past bury its dead. The doctrine 
of transmigration of souls has been dead by 
enlightened minds many, many years, and 
[126 



Cfie jfteto Cfieologg 



will never be resurrected. Theosophy, al- 
though not claiming to be a religion, might 
be called a destroyer of religion. 

The man who has a consciousness of his 
being, and a consciousness of his God, when 
taught to believe that this God, in the econ- 
omy of his universe, will, at the end of this 
life, turn him into a dog or a rat or a skunk, 
or any other animal, would have no use for 
such a God, and, in fact, could have no use 
for a religion of any kind. The strength of 
the Buddhist religion was in the doctrine of 
the brotherhood of man and charity — not in 
the transmigration of souls. And yet, a 
brotherhood of man without a Fatherhood 
of God is a bastard. 

What is the true religion? Yours, if you 
are true to yourself and God. "Of a truth, 
I perceive that God is no respector of per- 
sons; but in every nation, he that feareth 
Him, and worketh righteousness is accepted 
with him. 

Acts 17:26-29: "And he made of one 

blood all nations of men to dwell on all the 

face of the earth, having determined their 

appointed seasons, and the bounds of their 

127 



Cfte Jfteto Ctieologg 



habitations; that they should seek God, if 
happily they might feel after Him and find 
Him, though he is not far from each one of 
us ; for in Him we live, and move and have 
our being, as certain even of your own poets 
have said: 

"For we are also his offspring." 

"Being then the offspring of God, we 
ought not to think that the God-head is like 
unto gold or silver, or stone, graven by arts 
and device of man." 

Malachi 2:10: "Have we not all one 
Father? Hath not one God created us? 
Why do we deal treacherously, every man 
against his brother, profaning the covenant 
of our Fathers?" 

I Corinthians 8:6: "Yet to us there is 
one God, the Father, of whom are all things, 
and we unto Him; and one Lord, Jesus 
Christ, through whom are all things, and we 
through Him." 

Ephesians 4:6: "One God and Father 
of all, who is over all and through all, and 
in all." 

John 4:23: "But the hour cometh, and 
now is when the true worshippers shall wor- 

1128 



C6e H3eto Cfteologg 



ship the Father in spirit and truth ; for such 
doth the Father seek to be his worshippers. 
God is a spirit; and they that worship Him 
must worship in spirit and truth." 
This is the true religion. 



129 



THE HOLY SPIRIT. 



"Canst thou by searching find out God? 
Canst thou find out the Almighty to perfec- 
tion?" — Job ii 17. 

The Holy Spirit, or Holy Ghost, being 
the third person in the trinity, will be as 
difficult to comprehend as God himself. If 
our best conceptions of God are limited, so 
will our best conceptions of the Holy Spirit 
be limited. The various new revisions of 
the New Testament have so muddled us 
that we scarcely know whether to say Holy 
Spirit, or Holy Ghost. When we get through 
with this article, our readers can choose 
which they prefer. For myself, I prefer, as 
I have been accustomed to its use, the phrase 
"Holy Ghost." I was baptized, first in in- 
fancy, "In the name of the Father, Son and 
Holy Ghost," and, afterwards I was bap- 
tized "into the name of the Father, Son and 

13° 



Cfte iQeto Cfieologp 



Holy Ghost." The church has used the 
phrase "Holy Ghost" so long, under the 
Authorized Version that it seems to me to be 
a mistake to change it now. 

The Authorized Version, under King 
James, was authorized from three sources — 
Manuscripts, Versions, and Fathers. All 
combined in the Authorized Version. Most 
of our laymen, in the various protestant de- 
nominations will be surprised to learn that 
most of our preachers are using the Ameri- 
can Standard Version, in which the phrase 
"Holy Ghost" does not appear. When the 
Authorized, or "King James," Version was 
being prepared, it appears that the Holy 
Ghost was present, and asserted himself 
eighty-seven times. When the American 
Standard Version was being prepared it ap- 
pears that the Holy Ghost was not present, 
but that the office was filled by the Holy 
Spirit. 

The word "Holy" is a very common 
word, and can be applied to many, many ob- 
jects. Anything sacred may be called holy. 
Under the old dispensation, everything con- 
nected with the tabernacle, even to the 

131 



Cbe i0eto Cfieologp 



horses' bridles, were called holy. The word 
"Spirit" is a very common word. It can be 
applied to very many things. The spirit of 
love, the spirit of harmony, the spirit of 
goodness, the spirit of kindness, the spirit of 
devotion, the spirit of patriotism, etc. — all 
holy. Then we have the spirit of hate, the 
spirit of envy, the spirit of pride, the spirit 
of evil, the spirit of revenge, etc., etc. — Evil 
spirits. 

The word "Spirit" is used about four hun- 
dred times in the Old and New Testaments, 
and the word "Holy" about the same num- 
ber of times. The phrase "Holy Spirit" is 
only used three times in the Old Testament, 
and in the New Testament only four times. 

Jesus never used the phrase "Holy Spirit" 
but on one occasion, where he says, "Your 
Heavenly Father shall give the Holy Spirit 
to them that ask Him." Jesus used the 
phrase "Holy Ghost," instead of "Holy 
Spirit." 

The phrase "Holy Ghost" is used in the 
New Testament eighty-seven times, and not 
even once in the Old Testament. 

132 



C6e H3eto Cfieologp 



All this is according to the Authorized, 
or "King James" Version. 

The Spirit Age was ushered in on the day 
of Pentacost. Acts 1 14-5 : "And, being as- 
sembled together with them, commanded 
them that they should not depart from Jeru- 
salem, but wait for the promise of the 
Father, which, saith He, ye have heard of 
me. For John truly baptized with water, 
but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost, 
not many days hence." In the second chapter 
of the Acts of the Apostles we have the full 
account of the ushering in of the Spirit Age. 

The Disciples were to wait at Jerusalem 
for the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The 
Spirit has been given. The Comforter has 
come. We no longer have to wait for the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost. He is ever pres- 
ent. He is in every religious meeting. He 
is in the midst. He occupies a stand in the 
center of the assembly, and is in touch with 
everyone in the room. What we have to do 
is to confess His presence. Fifty years ago, 
in the opening of a revival meeting, we were 
told that it was necessary for us, too, to tarry 
at Jerusalem, to wait for the outpouring of 

133 



Cfie iQeto Cfjeologg 



the Holy Ghost. But, on all such occasions 
now, the Holy Ghost is among the first to 
enter the church or the congregation. And 
his power shall be felt in proportion as his 
presence is confessed, or acknowledged. If 
we are filled with the Spirit, with the "Holy" 
Ghost, even the Spirit of Truth, we will be 
led by the "Spirit of Truth," to do our part 
and let the "Holy Ghost, even the Spirit of 
Truth" do his part! Many good Christians 
people are trying to do the work of the Holy 
Ghost. 

If we are filled with the "Holy Ghost, 
even the Spirit of Truth," we will be taught, 
by the "Spirit of Truth." We will be led 
by the "Spirit of Truth." We will be 
guided by the "Spirit of Truth." "How be 
it, when He, the Spirit of Truth, is come. 
He will guide you into all the Truth." He 
will not guide you into error. He will not 
guide you into fanaticism. He will not guide 
you into boasting, spiritual pride, — but He 
will guide you into all Truth. Blessed Guide. 
Blessed Leader. Blessed Teacher. Blessed 
Guest, — who will abide with us even forever. 
Will our scholarly brethren let me say "Holy 

[134 



Cfte iQeto C&eologg 



Ghost, even the Spirit of Truth," instead of 
Holy Spirit? I like it better. 

In my old age I shall always use the 
phrase "Holy Ghost, Spirit of Truth." But 
in deference to the great scholarship and 
scholarly ability by which the various revis- 
ionists have conducted their work, we bow to 
their decisions. And the younger laymen will 
soon learn to say Holy Spirit, instead of 
Holy Ghost. 

We hail with gladness the various revis- 
ions of the Old Book, realizing that old 
things are passing away and all things are 
becoming new. A few more critical revis- 
ions, and the Old Book will become new. In 
deference to the scholarship of this century, 
and in deference to the better conceptions of 
the Father and the Son daily coming to us, 
in this age, we hail with gladness the coming 
of the New Book, the new light, the new 
Truth; the new Earth and the new Heavens 
in which dwelleth righteousness. I shall be 
glad to see a complete revision of the New 
Testament by the professors of New Testa- 
ment history selected from the different great 
universities of Europe and America. It has 

135 



Cfie i!3eto Cfieologp 



been claimed by some of these Professors of 
New Testament History, that some of the 
writers of the New Testament have attrib- 
uted certain statements to Jesus which are 
not in harmony with the life and teachings 
of Jesus. The world was never so anxious to 
know, truly, what did Jesus say? A commit- 
tee or conference of Professors of New Tes- 
tament History, from the various universi- 
ties could answer these questions. This com- 
mittee, representing the scholarship and spir- 
itual life of this age, could enable us to more 
fully comprehend "the Way, the Truth, and 
the Life." 

We are now in the Spirit Age, and are be- 
ing guided into the truth — into all truth — 
as we have never been in the history of the 
world. We are now in that age spoken of. 
by Joel, the prophet. The Spirit Age, when 
our sons and daughters shall prophesy, shall 
teach; our young men shall see visions, and 
our old men shall dream dreams. Our 
daughters are very largely doing the teach- 
ing in this age. Our young men see visions. 
Visions of electricity. Visions of railroads. 
Visions of great commercial enterprises and 
136 



Cfje iSeto C&eologg 



great transportation schemes. Visions of 
colleges and universities. Visions of teleg- 
raphy, telephone and telepathy. Visions of 
wireless telegraphy. Visions of airships and 
aeroplanes. Visionary men are greatly in 
demand. Practical men, who never do any- 
thing but what some one else has done before 
them, are not so much in demand. Our old 
men are dreaming of the good old times, 
times they had in their boyhood days. Times 
that will never return to them. Dreaming of 
the old time religion, when the greatest re- 
ligious interests to be had were secured 
through a fight, through some of the re- 
ligious denominations. Dreaming of an old 
time religion that will never return, of the 
old time revivals that are passing away with 
the old theology. Dreaming. Dreaming. 
Old men dreaming. Visionary young men 
who can see a cable going down under the 
water, reaching out across the sea, and con- 
necting two continents. Better still, — vis- 
ionary young men, bringing all the countries 
of the world, to be neighbors, by wireless 
telegraphy, talking from the shores to the 
ships on the ocean. Wonderful visions! 

137 



Cfte iSeto Cfieologg 



More wonderful visions yet in anticipation! 
Truly, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor 
the heart of man conceived of the wonder- 
ful visions yet in store for us, through the 
guidance of the "Spirit of Truth," who is 
so wonderfully leading us into all Truth. 

Visionary men are in demand in the Arts 
and Sciences, in Literature, in the Church, in 
the State and in the Nation. 

BY ELLA WHEELER WILCOX. 

The wonderful age of the world I sing — 
The age of battery, coil and spring, 
Of steam, and storage, and motored thing. 
Though faith may slumber and art seem 

dead, 
And all that is spoken has once been said, 
And all that is written were best unread; 
Though hearts are iron and thoughts are 

steel, 
And all that has value is mercantile, 
Yet marvelous truths shall the age reveal. 
Aye, greater the marvels this age shall find 
Than all the centuries left behind, 
When faith was a bigot and art was blind. 

[138 



Cfje iQeto C&eologg 



Oh, sorry the search of the world for gods, 
Through faith that slaughters and art that 

lauds, 
While reason sits on its throne and nods. 
But out of the leisure that men will know, 
When the cruel things of the sad earth go, 
A faith that is Knowledge shall rise and 

grow. 
Thinner is growing the veil between 
The visible earth and the world's unseen, 
The True Religion shall leisure bring; 
And Art shall awaken and Love shall sing; 
Oh, ho ! for the age of the motored thing ! 



m 



WHAT DID JESUS SAY? 



Jesus, the greatest character that has ever 
lived on this earth. Jesus, the Son of God. 
Jesus, the greatest teacher that ever lived. 
Jesus, the man Jesus, who, to-day, lives in 
the hearts of the people as no other man 
lived. Jesus, the Divine man, God manifest 
in the flesh. "I am in the Father, and the 
Father in me." "The words that I speak 
unto you, I speak not of myself; but the 
Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the 
works." "He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father." 

It is surely of the utmost importance to us 
to know, what did Jesus say? 

John closes his gospel with these words: 
"And there are also many other things which 
Jesus did, the which, if they should be 
written every one, I suppose that even the 
world itself could not contain the books that 
should be written." 

140 




{To face Chapter 
"What did Jesus Say; 
The New Theology.} 



Cfte JT3eto Cfieologg 



[What Jesus said and did during his three 
years' ministry, as God manifest in the flesh, 
will never be fully told on this earth. The 
human mind cannot fully grasp the thought 
of "God being manifest in the flesh." The 
effort of Jesus to explain this to his disciples, 
(in John's Gospel, Chaps. 14 to 16), was an 
absolute failure of the part of the disciples. 
They could not comprehend. They could 
not believe. Jesus, realizing that they could 
not grasp the thought of his divinity, of his 
being One with the Father — in his very des- 
peration, as it were, — said, "Believe me, that 
I am in the Father and the Father in me; 
or else believe me for the very work's sake." 
He might have said, "I have raised the dead; 
I have opened the eyes of the blind; I have 
made the deaf to hear; I have healed the 
lepers; I have made the lame to walk." 
"Believe me .... or else believe me 
for the work's sake." Truly, if we could 
comprehend the infinite, the Father and the 
Son, then this world could not contain the 
books that should be written. I anticipate 
that the occupation in the spirit world, in 
Heaven, will, in the millions of years to 

141 



Cfte H3eto C&eologg 



come, be our growing into the knowledge of 
God, the Father and the Son. 

No wonder that the disciples could not be- 
lieve, could not realize that Jesus, "whose 
Father and Mother we know" — the "car- 
penter's son, whose brothers and sisters we 
know," — could not possjbly be equal with 
God the Father. Had tKey believed they 
would not have forsaken him and fled, only 
a few hours after his wonderful talk with 
them. But, when their capacities were en- 
larged, when the Holy Ghost was given, they 
could believe. After this they could believe, 
sufficient to die for him. They could then 
realize that he had, indeed, risen from the 
dead; that he was still alive, that he was 
God manifest in the flesh. God cannot re- 
veal himself to us except as we have the ca- 
pacity to receive. They could now compre- 
hend that his words were true. He had not 
left them comfortless (orphans), but that 
he had, indeed, come to them — come with 
the help that they needed; come with the 
comforter — after all this sorrow, and 
anguish, and doubt. Come with peace. 
Come to be their teacher, their leader, to 



142 



Cfte J13eto Cfieologg 



lead them into the truth, into all the truth — 
into the truth that made them free. They 
could realize now his words, "In that day ye 
shall know that I am in my Father, and ye 
in me, and I in you." Blessed truth to us, — 
that we, too, are thus linked with the Father 
and the Son. Truly in him we live and move 
and have our being. 

Oh, the books that should have been writ- 
ten along these lines ! And yet, the very 
large number of books that have been 
written, supposedly in the interest of Jesus, 
have been written along lines that he never 
spoke of or referred to, — sectarian books^ 
Methodist books, Presbyterian books, Ro- 
man Catholic books — in fact, books of all 
the various human organizations called 
churches. The patience of the world, in this 
twentieth century, is not able to contain the 
books that have been written. 

Now we wish to ask what did Jesus say on 
the subjects on which many of these books 
have been written. 

What did Jesus say about the church? 
According to the Gospel of John, he never 
used the word church during his three years' 

143 



Cfte U3eto Cfteologp 



ministry. According to the Gospel of Luke, 
he never used the word "church." Accord- 
ing to the Gospel of Mark, he never used the 
word "church." According to the Gospel of 
Matthew, he never used the word "church," 
except on two occasions, — then using it only 
three times, and, on each of these occasions, 
the word "church" had no reference to the 
human organizations that we call churches. 
On the first occasion, Jesus asked his disci- 
ples — Math. 16:13-18: "Whom do men 
say that I, the Son of man, am? And they 
said, some say that thou art John the Bap- 
tist; some, Elias; and others, Jeremiah, or 
one of the prophets. He saith unto them, 
but whom say ye that I am? And Simon 
Peter," (being their spokesman), "answered 
and said, thou art the Christ, the Son of the 
living God. And Jesus answered and said 
unto him, blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: 
for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto 
thee, but my Father which is in Heaven. 
And I say also unto thee, that thou art 
Peter," (Petros, a stone), "and upon this 
rock" (Petra, a rock), "I will build my 
church" (my ecclesia, or assembly) ; "and 
144 



Cfte H3eto Cfteologp 



the gates of hell shall not prevail against 
it." "Upon this rock," this truth, this con- 
fession and profession, "I will build my 
church" (my assembly), — upon this profes- 
sion and confession, "and the gates of Hades 
cannot prevail against it." There is noth- 
ing that can withstand against the confession 
and profession of Jesus Christ. It is the 
rock upon which the church of Jesus Christ 
is built. The Methodist League, or the 
Christian Endeavor Society, comes the near- 
est being the "church" that Jesus said he 
would establish, or build, than any other 
church organization that I know of. The 
only other occasion where Jesus used the 
word "church" is in Matt. 18:15: "Go tell 
it to the church" — the assembly. These are 
the only two instances wherein Jesus ever 
used the word "church" during his three 
years with his disciples. 

What did Jesus say about the Kingdom 
of Heaven, or the Kingdom of God? . He 
had a great deal to say. He uses the ex- 
pressions "Kingdom of Heaven" and "King- 
dom of God" synonomously, and uses them 
forty-nine times in the Gospel of Matthew, 

145 



Cfie H3etu C&eologg 



fifteen times in Mark's gospel, thirty-six 
times in Luke's gospel, and five times in 
John's gospel, — thus using the expression 
"Kingdom of Heaven" or "Kingdom of 
God," in the four gospels, one hundred and 
six times. This is the more remarkable when 
we realize that he only used the word 
"church" three times as explained above. 

What is meant by the expression "King- 
dom of Heaven" or "Kingdom of God"? 
Let the Apostle Paul answer. Romans 
14:17: "For the Kingdom of God is not 
meat and drink; but righteousness, and 
peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost." Now we 
shall use this definition of Paul's of the 
"Kingdom" to illustrate the importance of 
Jesus' mission. He came to establish a 
kingdom. Not a temporal kingdom, but a 
spiritual kingdom. Not a kingdom beyond 
the skies, but a kingdom here — in this life; 
a kingdom of righteousness, and peace, and 
joy in the Holy Ghost. Not a place, but a 
condition. "The Kingdom of God is within 
you." A new life; a life into which we 
must be born. "Except a man be born again, 
he cannot see the Kingdom of God." "Ye 
146 



Cfie H3eto C&eologg 



must be born again. The wind bloweth 
where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound 
thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh 
and whither it goeth. So is everyone that is 
born of the spirit." Everyone, Jesus says; 
every one. No man can remember when he 
was born, physically. And we think it is 
equally true spiritually. We might except 
Paul, and a few of our Methodist brethren — 
but Jesus says every one. Most of the par- 
ables that Jesus used were given to explain 
the Kingdom of Heaven. If we substitute 
Paul's definition of the kingdom, as given 
above, we can understand just what is meant 
by the Kingdom of Heaven. To illustrate, 
"Righteousness, and peace, and joy in the 
Holy Ghost" is like unto a grain of mustard 
seed. It has a very wonderful growth. Or, 
it is like unto "leaven, which a woman took 
and hid in three measures of meal." It per- 
meates everything. Or, it "is like unto a 
merchantman seeking goodly pearls." It is 
the great pearl, worth all the rest. Or "A 
rich man shall hardly enter into righteous- 
ness, and peace, etc." Or "How hard it is 
for them that trust in riches to enter into 

Ml 



Cfie JOeto Cfieologp 



righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost." Or "Repent ye, for righteousness, 
and peace, and joy, etc., is at hand." We 
could multiply these illustrations, but think 
these are sufficient. 

Jesus came to establish a Kingdom of God 
on earth. It was the "gospel of the King- 
dom" that he preached; the good tidings of 
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost. When he sent out the Twelve, he 
said: "As ye go, preach, saying the King- 
dom of Heaven is at hand." When he sent 
out the Seventy h? gave them the same in- 
structions. It was the gospel of the King- 
dom. Matthew 24:14, he says: "And this 
gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in 
all the world for a witness unto all nations." 
The last we hear of Paul is in the last verse 
of the Acts of the Apostles. He was 
"preaching the Kingdom of God 
in his own hired house." 

Many books might be written about what 
Jesus said about the "Gospel of the King- 
dom," but you seldom ever hear it referred 
to in the modern pulpit. 

What did Jesus say about the Fatherhood 
148 



Cfie H3eto C&eologg 



of God and the Brotherhood of Man? It 
appears that this came in next to the "Gos- 
pel of the Kingdom" itself. He refers to 
God as our Father in John's gospel one 
hundred and seventeen times; in Luke's 
gospel, nine times; in Mark's gospel, five 
times; in Matthew's gospel, forty-two times. 
Jesus was crucified because he claimed to be 
the Son of God. He not only revealed the 
fact that he was the Son of God, but that 
we were sons of God also. When he at- 
tempted to explain to his disciples that he 
was the Son of God they could not com- 
prehend him. He had taught them to say, 
"Our Father" when they prayed. He made 
it very plain that God is not only our Fa- 
ther, but that every man is our brother. He 
used the word Father seventeen times in 
the sermon on the mount. When this ser- 
mon is fully comprehended, the Fatherhood 
of God and the Brotherhood of man will 
be established on the earth. The Kingdom 
of Heaven will then be, in deed and in 
truth, in our midst. 

What did Jesus say about teaching? 
That was the important thing in his life and 
149 



Cfte J3eto Cfteologp 



in his work. "He went about teaching" — i 
constantly teaching. His main work was 
teaching — publishing the glad tidings of 
righteousness, and peace and joy in the Holy 
Ghost, and his last message to us was, "Go 
teach (disciple) all nations, baptizing them 
into the name of the Father and the Son 
and the Holy Ghost; teaching them to ob- 
serve all things whatsoever I have com- 
manded you, and Lo, I am with you always, 
even unto the end of the world." Teaching 
them to observe what? "All things whatso- 
ever I have commanded you" — not the 
things that I never referred to, but the things 
that I spake of. Things of the Gospel of the 
Kingdom. Things of the Fatherhood of 
God and the Brotherhood of Man. 

This was his mission. Teaching. Send- 
ing his followers out ,to teach; teaching, 
preaching, publishing the glad tidings of 
righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost. This should be the work of the 
church. Everybody should be a member 
of some church organization; should either 
be a teacher or be taught. The only com- 
mission Jesus ever gave to any one was to 

[i£0 



Cfte JSeto Cfieolosg 



go preach, or teach, the gospel of the King- 
dom. The great need of the world today 
is to be taught. We come into this world 
more helpless than a little chicken. It can 
get around and look out for its food. But 
the little human baby would lie there and 
die, if it could get no help; and it would 
never know anything if it were not taught, 
and it only becomes what it is taught to be. 
I wish I could impress upon my readers the 
importance of teaching. I will give you 
this example. In one of our States, Wis- 
consin, I believe, a man was convicted of 
murder and sentenced to the penitentiary for 
life. He was said to be one of the most 
vicious and desperate of men that ever en- 
tered the State's prison. He had never been 
properly taught. In the prison life he had 
to do some thinking, and he became inter- 
ested in the prison teaching and showed a 
willingness to learn. The officials of the 
prison encouraged him and gave him an op- 
portunity to study. He took up civil engi- 
neering, and within a few years he became 
one of the most expert engineers in the State. 
The Governor pardoned him out, and se- 

»5* 



Cf)e jQeto Cfieologg 



cured him a position of $2,000 per year sal- 
ary. This case only shows the power of 
teaching. Jesus was the great teacher, and 
well understood that the success of his king- 
dom depended on correct teaching. The 
twelve apostles were twelve ordinary men, 
unlearned, belonging to the common people, 
and Jesus, as shown in his last talk with his 
Apostles, realizing that they were dull and 
unable to comprehend him, said, "I will not 
leave you comfortless' (orphans), helpless, 
without a teacher. I will come to you." 
I will give you another comforter, another 
teacher, (aleader — who will lead you into 
the truth; into all truth; a teacher who will 
be your guest (the Holy Ghost), who will 
abide with you forever. 

This promise to his apostles, to lead them 
into all truth, comes to us today with more 
force than it did to the apostles. Comes to 
the world today with more force than it had 
two thousand years ago. Jesus then was 
only the leader of his apostles and a few 
disciples. Today he is the recognized leader 
of the world. He is the recognized teacher 
of the world. He lives in the hearts of the 



152 



Cfte I3eto C&eologg 



people of today as he never has since He 
was on the earth. He is leading the world 
into all the truth as he never has done be- 
fore. He is opening the way for the truth, 
religiously, scientifically, commercially. Truth 
commands in the churches today as it never 
has before, and we are willing to loose our 
little, narrow, baby lives, in order that we 
may receive the larger, better life. It com- 
mands in our churches today in proportion 
as the old theology is giving place to the new. 
Truth commands in our colleges and univer- 
sities today as never has before. Truth 
commands in our scientific laboratories; noth- 
ing passes there but truth; nothing passes 
in our chemical laboratories but truth. Some 
of the wonderful truths into which we have 
been led in the last fifty years; the truths in 
connection with steam; the truths in connec- 
tion with electricity; the truths in connection 
with the transportation problems; the truths 
in connection with telegraph, the telephone, 
the wireless telegraphy — wonderful truths ! 
Jesus not only promised to lead us into all 
truth, but He also said that after he was 
gone we should do greater things than He 

*S3 



CSe iSeto Cfieologp 



did while on the earth. The greater things 
are now being done, and we, with expecta- 
tions, are still looking for greater. All to 
come through teaching. Today it should 
be every man's business to be a teacher, in 
the sense that, "Freely you have received, 
freely give." If you know more than your 
brother, give him the advantage of your 
greater knowledge. Give him your help in 
this sense. Jesus went about teaching and 
preaching the gospel of righteousness and 
peace and joy in the Holy Ghost. 

How will this Holy Ghost, this Teacher, 
this Spirit of Truth lead us into all Truth? 
Just in proportion as we have the capacity 
to receive the truth. We must grow into the 
knowledge of the truth. God is truth. 
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. We 
must be led into the truth. The world has 
never been so fully led into the truth as it 
has been in the last fifty years. We should 
be willing to be led into the truth, no differ- 
ence how badly it shatters our former faiths 
or beliefs. It has settled many vexed ques- 
tions in the religious world within the last 
fifty years. The advancement in power — * 

;I54 



Cfte n3eto Cfteologp 



steam power, motive power, electricity — 
during the last fifty years has been greater 
than that during the preceding fifteen hun- 
dred years. All this advancement — all 
these inventions — are the triumphs of truth. 
Everything not in harmony with the teach- 
ings of Jesus is error. Everything in har- 
mony with the love and life of Jesus is truth. 
He is the truth. He was our example. He 
suffered that others might live. He lived a 
perfect life. He said, "If any man will come 
after me, let him deny himself." Himself 
— put away his selfishness. "Take up his 
cross and follow me." If we live for self, 
we lose the entire Spirit of the Christ. "For 
whosoever shall lose his life for my sake" 
— for the truth's sake shall find a larger, 
grander and better life. "For what is a man 
profited if he shall gain the whole world 
and forfeit his life, or what shall a man 
give in exchange for his life." "I am come 
that they might have life, and that they might 
have it more abundantly." A grander, bet- 
ter life. Jesus also said, "Except ye eat the 
flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, 
ye have no life in yourselves." Again he 

MS 



€f)e jQeto C&eologp 



says: "The words that I have spoken unto 
you are spirit and they are life, but there 
are some of you that believe not." Jesus 
knew that his disciples could not compre- 
hend this, but that they would be able to 
comprehend it after the Holy Ghost was 
given — the Spirit of Truth. "In that day 
ye shall know that I am in my Father, 
and ye in me, and I in you." Then they 
could realize what it is to be fed by the 
flesh and blood, nourished and strengthened 
by the very life of the Christ — one with the 
Christ and the Father. This gives us the 
assurance of our divinity. Children of God, 
heirs of God, and joint heirs with the Christ. 
This might have been getting pretty close 
to the things that Jesus referred to when he 
said, "There are many things that I would 
like to say to you, but you cannot bear them 
now." In the future — after we have been 
taught by the Holy Ghost, led by the Spirit 
of Truth, there may be many books written 
about the things we cannot bear now. 

Under the old theology many books have 
been written about Heaven, Hell, Sin, Holi- 
ness, The Plan of Salvation, Redemption, 

156 



Cfte H3eto Cfteologp 



Consecration, Revivals, Evangelists, etc. 
Now we want to see what Jesus said about 
these various subjects. 

What did Jesus say about Heaven? He 
taught us that Heaven was a Place, but that 
the Kingdom of Heaven was only a condi- 
tion — a condition of righteousness and peace. 

He was very explicit and plain in what He 
had to say about Heaven as a place. He 
said that "in my Father's house are many 
mansions. " Then, to settle any doubts we 
might have had about it, He said, "If it were 
not so I would have told you." Giving us 
perfect assurance that he had been there and 
knew what he was talking about. He said, 
I came from there; I lived there before 
"Abraham was." "I came out from the Fa- 
ther and am come into the world." Again, 
"I leave the world and go unto the Father." 
Nothing could be plainer. 

He did not say much about Heaven. Not 
near so much as a great many good men have 
said, who have never been there. Possibly 
he would have liked to have told us more, 
when He said, "you cannot bear them now." 
But the Teacher, the Holy Ghost, who is to 

157 



Cfie Jfteto Cfteologp 



abide with you, he has been there; I will 
send Him from there to live with you while 
you are on earth; He will tell you. He will 
bring all things to your remembrance that I 
have said unto you.' Paul says : "It is written, 
Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither 
hath entered into the heart of man, the things 
that God has prepared for them that love 
Him." The mansions are prepared. And 
God is revealing those things unto us by His 
Spirit, just as fast as we are able to receive 
them. Jesus had much more to say about 
the Kingdom of Heaven on earth, in this 
life, than he had about the Kingdom beyond 
the skies. Seek first the Kingdom of God in 
this life — righteousness and peace in this 
life, and all things will be added. Joy in 
the Holy Ghost, in this life will be added, 
and Heaven anticipated. 

What did Jesus say about Hell as a place 
of endless Torment — Endless Torture? — 
According to John's gospel, He never used 
the word, "Hell, Gehenna, as a place of tor- 
ment. John was called the beloved disciple. 
He was possibly more intimate with Jesus 
than any of the apostles, and yet, according 

158 



Cfte H3eto Cfteologg 



to John's Gospel, he never mentioned the 
subject. This is unexplainable from the 
standpoint of the old theology. In Luke's 
Gospel we have a record of what he said in 
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. 
In Matthew's gospel, he says: "Whosoever 
shall say to his brother, thou fool! shall be 
in danger of the hell of fire." In Mark's 
Gospel, he says: "If thine hand offend thee, 
cut it off; it is better for thee to enter into 
life maimed than having two hands to go 
into hell, into the fire that never shall be 
quenched, etc." 

There is no controversy in the Christian 
world over future punishment. We have an 
illustration of future punishment every day, 
in every walk of life. The farmer who fails 
to sow is punished by lack of food or sus- 
tenance. The boy who fails to get an edu- 
cation suffers the consequence all through 
his after life. Lost opportunity, endless, 
never returns. The man who cuts his hand 
or his foot is punished in the future, until it is 
healed; but, if he cuts his foot off, he is 
punished eternally. The foot will never, 
never be replaced. Nothing truer than, 

l S9. 



Cfte JOeto Cfteologp 



"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he 
reap." 

The doctrine of endless torment, endless 
torture is not in line with the teaching and 
life of Jesus. The origin of the doctrine of 
endless torment was not Christian, not even' 
Hebrew or Jewish. Here is a sample of the 
Hindu and Persian thought on this subject. 
We quote from the Hindu and Persian sa- 
cred books : 

"Here worlds of nauseating disgust, of 
loathsome agonies, of intolerable terrors, 
pass before us. Some are hung up by their 
tongues or by their eyes, and slowly de- 
voured by fiery vermin; some scourged with 
whips of serpents, whose poisonous fangs 
lacerate their flesh at every blow; some 
forced to swallow bowls of gore, hair, and 
corruption, freshly filled as fast as drained; 
some packed immovably in red-hot iron 
chests, and laid in raging furnaces for unut- 
terable millions of ages." 

We also quote from a Brahmanic priest, 

who tells of a man who, for neglecting to 

meditate on the mystic monosyllable 'Om' 

before praying, was "thrown down in hell 

1 60 



Cfje H3eto Cfieologp 



on an iron floor, and cleaved with an axe, 
then stirred in a cauldron of molten lead till 
covered all over with the sweated foam of 
torture, like a grain of rice in an oven, and 
then fastened, with head downwards, to a 
chariot of fire and urged onward with a red- 
hot goad." 

Such thoughts as the above could come 
only from a bad heart, an evil heart, from 
incarnate devils. Jesus could not entertain 
a thought so evil, so Satanic. In fact, the 
wickedest man I know of could not harbor 
a thought so cruel. 

But even these ancient peoples are grow- 
ing out of this old theology, as shown by the 
Brahma creed as given by the Encyclopedia 
Britannica. We quote from an article by 
Prof. Julius Eggeling, Ph.D., Professor of 
Sanscrit and Comparative Philology, Uni- 
versity of Edinburgh: — 

"The Brahma creed was definitely formu- 
lated as follows: (i) The book of nature 
and intuition supplies the basis of religious 
faith. (2) Although the Brahmas do not 
consider any book written by men the basis 
of their religion, yet they do accept with re- 
161 



Cfie U3eto Cfieologg 



spect and pleasure any religious truth con- 
tained in any book. (3) The Brahmas be- 
lieve that the religious condition of man is 
progressive, like the other departments of 
his condition in this world. (4) They be- 
lieve that the fundamental doctrines of their 
religion are also the basis of every true re- 
ligion. (5) They believe in the existence of 
one Supreme God — a God endowed with a 
distinct personality, moral attributes worthy 
of His nature, and an intelligence befitting 
the Governor of the universe, and they wor- 
ship Him alone. They do not believe in any 
of his incarnations. (6) They believe in the 
immortality and progressive state of the soul, 
and declare that there is a state of conscious 
existence succeeding life in this world and 
supplementary to it as respects the action of 
the universal moral government. (7) They 
believe that repentence is the only way to sal- 
vation. They do not reconcile any other 
mode of reconcilement to the offended but 
loving Father. (8) They pray for spiritual 
welfare, and believe in the efficacy of such 
prayers. (9) They believe in the providen- 
tial care of the Divine Father. (10) They 
162 



Cfte ifteto C&eologp 



avow that love towards Him and the per- 
formance of the works which He loves, con- 
stitute His worship. ( 1 1 ) They recognize 
the necessity of public worship, but do not 
believe that communion with the Father de- 
pends upon meeting in any fixed place at any 
fixed time. They maintain that they can adore 
Him at any time and at any place, provided 
that the time and the place are calculated to 
compose and direct the mind towards him. 
(12) They do not believe in pilgrimages, 
and declare that holiness can only be at- 
tained by elevating and purifying the mind. 
'(13) They put no faith in rites or cere- 
monies, nor do they believe in penances, as 
instrumental in obtaining the grace of God. 
They declare that moral righteousness, the 
gaining of wisdom, divine contemplation, 
charity, and the cultivation of devotional 
feelings are their rites and ceremonies. They 
further say, Govern and regulate your feel- 
ings, discharge your duties to God and to 
man and you will gain everlasting blessed- 
ness ; purify your heart, cultivate devotional 
feelings, and you will see Him who is un- 
seen. (14) Theoretically, there is no dis- 
163 



Cfte Jl2eto Cfteologp 



tinction of caste among the Brahmas. They 
declare that we are all the children of God, 
and therefore must consider ourselves as 
brothers and sisters." 

Here we see India, during the last fifty 
years, has grown out of her old theology into 
a new and better theology. Our own mis- 
sionaries would not dare to go to India to- 
day with a gospel of endless torment after 
death. And yet, it is not many years since 
our missionaries and Missionary Boards 
talked in this way. 

We quote from the appendix of a book 
published by Minot Judson Savage, D.D., 
on "The Passing and the Permanent in Re- 
ligion" : 

"An American missionary, after his return 
from China, said: 'Fifty thousand a day go 
down to the fire that is not quenched. Six 
hundred millions more are going the same 
road. Should you not think, at least once 
a day, of the fifty thousand who that day 
sink to the doom of the lost?" 

The American Board of Commissioners 
of Foreign Missions says: "To send the Gos- 
pel to the heathen is a work of great exi- 
164 



C6e U3eto C&eologp 



gency. Within the last thirty years a whole 
generation of five hundred millions have 
gone down to eternal death." 

Again, the same Board say in their tract, 
"The Grand Motive to Missionary Effort" : 

" 'The heathen are involved in the ruins 
of apostasy, and are expressly doomed to per- 
dition. Six hundred millions of deathless 
souls on the brink of hell! What a spec- 
tacle ! 

"Rev. Dr. Cleveland, New Haven, 1863: 
'Glorious things have been achieved, it is 
true. But, after all, there are six hundred 
millions still groping in the shadow of death, 
and perishing, twenty millions a year!' " 

What did Jesus say about Sin and Holi- 
ness? — According to all the gospels he never 
used the word "sin," but on these several oc- 
casions, in such references as the following: 
"Sin against the Holy Ghost," "He that is 
without sin cast the first stone," "Whoso 
committeth sin is the servant of sin," "If you 
were blind, ye would have no sin," "Had I 
not spoken unto them, they had not had 
sin," "But now they have no excuse for their 
sin," "The Comforter will reprove the world 

16s 



C6e Beta C&eologg 



of sin," u He that delivered me has the 
greater sin," "How oft shall thy brother 
sin," "Sin no more lest a worse thing come 
upon thee," "Neither do I condemn thee; 
go, sin no more." 

From the above occasions we can only 
gather that "sin is a transgression of the 
law," a transgression of the written law or a 
transgression of the law that God has put in 
our minds and written on our hearts. Now, 
is it possible that Jesus would be the close 
friend and associate of His apostles for three 
years, and never say anything about the 
awfulness of sin as depicted in the old the- 
ology. Is it not likely that the erroneous 
ideas about sin and holiness that the heathen 
world has had, and the low conception of 
God held by them, has influenced the He- 
brew or Jewish thought aleng these lines? 
The Hindu thought that God made His own 
children so sinful and unholy that they must 
pass through many, many reincarnations be- 
fore their God of Holiness can have any- 
thing to do with them. The various theories, 
or lines of thought, entertained by the 
heathen world on the subject of God. Crea- 
166 



Cfte H2eto Cfteologg 



tion, Sin, Holiness, etc., have evidently in- 
fluenced the Hebrew or Jewish thought along 
these lines. 

The word "Holy" is used in the Old Tes- 
tament seventy times; but Jesus never used 
the word "Holy" but five times, and only 
once he applied it to the Father, when he 
said, "O Holy Father." The word "holi- 
ness" is used in the Old Testament twenty- 
three times, but Jesus never used the word 
at all. Is not this very remarkable — that 
Jesus has had so little to say about Sin and 
Holiness, when the old Theology has had so 
much to say? Holiness, in the Old Testa- 
ment, was applied to pots and vessels in the 
sanctuary, and even the horses' bridles were 
holy. Everything set apart for God was 
holy. 

We want to call the attention of our 
Brother Laymen to some things that the 
various Church organizations have empha- 
sized, that have occupied the time and atten- 
tion of the Church, but in which Jesus has 
apparently not been interested. 

What did Jesus say about Sanctificationf 
He never used the word. What did Jesus 
1167 



C&e H3eto Cfieologp 



say about consecration? He never used the 
word. What did Jesus say about Evangel- 
ists? He never used the word. What would 
Jesus think of a traveling, money-making 
Evangelist, touring the country, gathering in 
the dollars by the $100,000 — accumulating 
more than $200,000 within ten years, more 
money than he could make in playing base- 
ball in a hundred years? Is it possible to 
conceive of Jesus doing that kind of work, in 
the interest of the Gospel of the Kingdom? 
In making inquiry along these lines, as to 
what Jesus had to say about the various sub- 
jects that have occupied the time and atten- 
tion of the various Church organizations all 
these years, I have been surprised to find that 
Jesus had so little, or nothing, to say. 

What did Jesus say about the plan of sal- 
vation? Nothing. According to the four 
gospels, he never referred to it; never used 
the expression, "plan of salvation"; never 
knew there was any plan of salvation. He 
never used the word salvation but once. That 
was when he met the Samaritan woman at 
the well. The Jews and Samaritans had no 
dealings. Each claimed the correct copy of 
;i68 



Cfte jQeto C&eologp 



the Bible, the Pentateuch, and we all know 
that there are no fights more bitter than re- 
ligious fights. So the Samaritan woman, 
woman-like, was ready to take up the old 
fight; and she said to Jesus, "How is it that 
thou, being a Jew, asketh drink of me, which 
am a Samaritan woman?" This gave Jesus 
the opportunity to reveal Himself to this 
Samaritan woman. He soon convinced her 
that He was the real bread of life, the real 
water of life ; the living water, of which, if a 
man drink, he will never thirst. The woman 
asks for this living water, that she may never 
again thirst. How readily the Holy Spirit 
gives us the things we honestly ask for, for 
she immediately perceives that he is a 
prophet, or the Christ. Still she could not 
quite get away from the old fight between 
the Jews and the Samaritans, and she said: 
"Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, 
and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place that 
men ought to worship." "Jesus saith unto 
her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh 
when neither in this mountain, nor in Jeru- 
salem, shall ye worship the Father" — com- 
promising the old fight between the Jews and 
169 



Cfie J!2eto Cfteologp 



Samaritans as to where they should worship 
God; teaching her that the true worship was 
to worship the Father, in spirit and in truth. 
That the true salvation was spiritual salva- 
tion; not a Jewish or Hebrew salvation, 
from your enemies, from every earthly ill; 
but the true spiritual salvation that saves 
now, that quenches the thirst now; that saved 
the Samaritan woman then and there and 
many of her friends, enabling them to con- 
fess the Christ — the salvation that comes 
from confession and profession. This is the 
only time that Jesus ever used the word "sal- 
vation," although it is used sixty times in the 
Old Testament and forty times in the new. 
In the Old Testament it is used largely as an 
earthly salvation — a salvation from enemies 
- — "Wrought salvation in Israel;" "Jona- 
than wrought a great salvation," "Wait and 
see the salvation of the Lord," "Help us, O 
God of our salvation," etc. But in no in- 
stance, in the Old Testament, is it used as a 
salvation from endless punishment, according 
to the old Theology. In the forty times that 
the word is used in the New Testament, Jesus 
only used it once^-on the occasion just re- 

[170 



Cfie ii3eto C&eologg 



f erred to; and He never used the expression 
"plan of salvation," about which the old the- 
ology has written so much. A plan ; a plan to 
save a sin-cursed world from the tortures of 
an endless Hell. An old theological plan. 
A plan to counteract the fall of man. A plan 
to beat, overcome, get ahead of the Devil, 
who got into the world somehow, but God 
does not know exactly how, and the old the- 
ology won't tell. It is an old plan; an old 
theological plan. Strange, but Jesus in his 
three years' ministry never referred to it! 
A plan that included Jesus, a plan in which 
Jesus was supposed to be the principal actor, 
and yet, in his three years ministry never re- 
ferred to it! I am glad to note that intelli- 
gent ministers, in most of the leading 
churches, in the Protestant denominations, 
seldom refer to it any more in their sermons. 
Old things are passing away, and all 
things are becoming new. Old theologies 
are rapidly passing away and giving place to 
the new. Some of our advanced thinkers are 
predicting a new religion, say "the present 
church does not fulfill its purpose ; must face 
life problems." 

1171 



C&e jQeto Cfieologg 



Why, the new religion is already here! 
There is no religious denomination that I 
know of that stands where it did fifty years 
ago, not even the Catholic. And fifty years 
hence no one of them will stand where they 
do today. We might say twenty-five years 
hence. The new religion is already here. 
It is simply a growth out of the old, and will 
continue to grow into the new! The New 
Religion, in its growth, is fast learning to 
fulfill the purposes of the Church and face 
all of life's problems. 

What did Jesus say about the Covenant, 
or Covenants that God made with his Peo- 
ple, the Hebrews, or Jews? He never used 
the word "covenant, or covenants" during 
his ministry with His disciples. Three years 
of close association, teaching, revealing unto 
us the things of most vital interest to us — 
and never used the word "covenant" ! 

The word "covenant" is used in the Old 
Testament seventy-seven times. "Book of the 
Covenant" used three times; "Established 
covenant" is used four times; "Everlasting 
covenant" is used nine times; "Keep (or 
kept) covenant" is used eleven times. "Made 
172 



Cfte iQeto C&eologp 



covenant" is used thirty-two times; "Make 
covenant" is used fifteen times; "New cove- 
nant" is used two times; "Remember cove- 
nant" five times, and "Transgressed cove- 
nant" nine times — using the word "covenant" 
one hundred and sixty-seven times; and yet 
Jesus never used the word! The word 
"covenant" is used in the New Testament 
sixteen times and yet Jqsus never used the 
word ! No wonder the Jews crucified Him, 
for He was, verily, a heretic from a Jewish 
standpoint. 



*73 



THE BIBLE. 



The Bible, to me, is the greatest book in 
the world. It is not the greatest book in the 
world, to those that have never read it or 
who know but little about it. It is the great- 
est collection of truth in the world, to the 
truth-seeker. It is not all the truth. It is 
truth only to those who comprehend it and 
who love the truth. It is no truth to the 
man who never reads it. It is not much 
truth to the man who prides himself in say- 
ing that he believes everything in the Bible 
from cover to cover, and yet knows but lit- 
tle that is between the covers. It is not much 
truth to the sceptic, who says he don't want 
to believe it. It is not much truth to the 
man who swallows it whole, or attempts to, 
and gets choked on it, and is ever after- 
wards dead to all spiritual life. It is too 
big a dose to swallow whole, and it will al- 

174 



Cfte iSeto Cfieologg 



ways prove disastrous to the man who at- 
tempts it. Like other systems of truth, it 
must be taken in small doses at first. In 
mathematical truth, we must first learn addi- 
tion. In Biblical truth, we must first learn 
to add: "Add to your faith, virtue — and to 
virtue, knowledge — and to knowledge, tem- 
perance — and to temperance, patience — and 
to patience, godliness, and to godliness, 
brotherly kindness — and to brotherly kind- 
ness, love." This mathematical course will 
enable you to prove the truth of the Bible. 

We have many men and women, Christian 
men and women, who have never had any- 
thing but the milk of the Word. A strong 
dose of the meat of the Word would kill 
them, as sure as a strong dose of solids 
would kill a two weeks' old baby. They are 
Christians, live Christians — as alive as any 
milk-fed baby. They like the milk of the 
Word — so well that they don't care about 
anything else. They are as happy as chil- 
dren, and at their social meetings they ex- 
change bottles with each other, just as chil- 
dren exchange their chewing gum. They 
know that they are alive, and always doubt 

175 



Cfte iSeto Cfteologp 



the genuineness of any other Christians 
larger than themselves. A full-grown man 
or woman in Christ Jesus would frighten 
them as a little baby is frightened by the 
sight of a stranger. Good people. God 
bless them, and put them into the Baby Class 
when they reach heaven. Strange ! I knew 
a mother once who, for some reason, de- 
clined to wean her baby until it was four or 
five years old, and then she found it very 
difficult to wean it. It would not only cry 
for its milk, but would fight its mother for 
it. By a little inquiry, you can get the testi- 
mony of mothers on this subject. The older 
a child gets the more difficult it is to wean it. 
So we will always have a supply of milk-fed 
Christians. But they don't get much out of 
the truth of the Bible. Their opinions about 
the truth of the Bible is worth about as much 
as the opinion of a boy, in mental arithmetic, 
would be about a proposition in Trigonom- 
etry. 

Unfortunately, we have some of those 

milk-fed Christians who are preachers. They 

got a taste of the milk of the Word years 

ago (and it does taste well), and they liked 

176 



Cfte iSeto Cfteologg 



it. They liked the work of distributing it to 
others, and .were under these conditions 
made preachers. They were never weaned, 
and they continue to use only the milk of the 
Word — and give it out to others. They 
have bottled large quantities of it, and al- 
ways have a supply on hand. Most of the 
milk-fed Christians don't get the real mother 
milk. They use the bottled milk, supplied by 
the milk-fed preachers. God bless them! 
But the Bible is not much truth to them! 
They have not the capacity to receive the 
truth. 

The Bible is not much truth to our Roman 
Catholic laymen, because they are not ex- 
pected to read it. 

The Bible does not contain all the truth. 
There are other systems of truth in the 
world, with which we have much to do. 
There are the great Mathematical truths, 
without which we could not get along. We 
could not even build our houses without 
them. We could not even divide up the 
earth, that God has given to all the people, 
each of us grabbing for all we can get of it, 
without the great truths of Mathematics. 
177 



Cfte jQeto Cfieologg 



We could not build our cities, we could not 
build our railroads, our tunnels, our sub- 
ways — our so many things, without the great 
truths of Mathematics. Then there are the 
great Chemical truths, that are essential to 
our very existence. Without them, we could 
not distinguish between poison and health- 
giving products. Then we have much to do 
with the wonderful scientific truths in this 
age of the world, in which the Bible is sup- 
posed to be silent. David was evidently 
seeking truth outside of revelation, when he 
said, 'I was made in secret, in the lowest 
parts of the earth;' I cannot get away from 
my Maker, but I cannot understand the secret 
of the origin of human life. "Such knowl- 
edge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I 
cannot attain to it." (Psalms 139). 

The Bible is not supposed to contain all 
the truth, but Jesus says (John 16: 12) : "I 
have many things to say unto you, but you 
cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, 
the spirit of truth is come, He will guide you 
into all Truth." Jesus could not reveal very 
much truth to us, and he said, "You cannot 
bear it now." We did not have the capacity 

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C&e JQeto Cfteologg 



to receive it then. But the spirit of truth is 
in the world today as it never has been be- 
fore. We are not only living in the Spirit 
Age, but the "Spirit of Truth" is at work, 
and He, the Spirit of Truth, dictates, speaks, 
guides, in the chemical laboratories, in the 
scientific laboratories, in the commercial 
world, in the literary world, in our great uni- 
versities, in the religious world, as it never 
has before. The Bible today (the truth of 
the Bible) reaches more people than it ever 
has done in the history of the world. 

It is not truth to the person who gets an 
incorrect interpretation of the Bible. For all 
Scripture must be interpreted according to 
the circumstances and conditions under which 
it was written. It is necessary to know who 
is speaking, who he is speaking to, and what 
he is speaking about. Even the simplest 
sentence in almost any language will bear two 
or three different interpretations. Take the 
sentence from Blair's Rhetoric, "Did you 
walk into the city yesterday? No, I rode. 
Did you walk into the city yesterday? No, 
I went into the country. Did you walk into 
the city yesterday? No, I went the day be- 

17? 



Cfte K3eto Cfteologp 



fore." Here we use the same sentence, word 
for word and letter for letter, yet it requires 
three different interpretations ! So, the Bible 
is not much truth to any one who gets a 
wrong interpretation of it. It is not much 
truth to the man who takes it all literally. 
Jesus said, "The words that I spake unto you, 
they are spirit, and they are life." The Bi- 
ble is not much truth to the man who reads 
and takes the book of Jonah literally, and be- 
lieves that the whale swallowed Jonah, sim- 
ply because, literally the Bible says so — and 
if it had said that Jonah swallowed the 
whale, he would have believed that. He 
fails to get the truth, the great truth; that 
we all, occasionally, want to go to Tarshish 
when God wants us to go to Nineveh; to 
learn to do the will of our Father — the great 
truth that God has more pity for a people 
"who cannot discern between their right 
hand and their left hand," than we have for 
"a gourd — that comes up in a night and 
perishes in a night." 

The Bible is not much truth to him who is 
unwilling to be led by the Spirit of Truth; 
but it is all truth to him who is willing to be 
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Cfte iQeto Cfieologg 



taught — willing to be led by the Spirit of 
Truth, who will lead him into the truth that 
will make him free. 

Blessed Bible. Blessed Truth. Jesus is 
the way, the Truth and the life. Whoso- 
ever would lose his little, narrow, baby life 
for the truth's sake, will find a large, better 
life. 



181 



LIFE. 



Of all the animal creations, man comes 
into this world among the most helpless. 
More helpless than the horse or the cow or 
the sheep; more helpless than a little chicken. 
When the horse comes into this life he is 
soon on his feet, without help, seeking life 
from his mother's milk, soon nipping the 
grass provided for him by the Creator, and, 
with food and clothing provided, he is soon 
able to gallop off over the plains indepen- 
dent of any other horse for his living. 

But how is it with man? He comes into 
this life absolutely helpless. Without help 
he would lay there and die. But with the 
help of his mother, he soon grows into a 
larger life — but continues to be dependent, to 
need help all through his life, even to the 
very end of his life. He needs help even to 
die. I might illustrate this more clearly by 
.182 



Cfie H3eto Cfieologg 



showing how helpless and dependent I am 
this morning. I am dependent on some one 
for the pen with which I am writing this ar- 
ticle. I am dependent upon some one for 
the table upon which I am writing. I am de- 
pendent on many persons this morning for 
the breakfast I had — dependent, even, on 
the chicken that furnished the eggs to eat — 
dependent on some one for the plate I had 
to eat on. I am dependent on some one for 
every article of food that comes on my table. 
I am dependent on some one for every ar- 
ticle of clothing I wear. If I go down to 
town this morning I shall be dependent on 
somebody's street-car, as I have none of my 
own to ride on; or I must depend on some- 
body for an automobile to ride in, as I can- 
not make one of my own. If I go to St. 
Louis tomorrow I must use somebody's 
steam cars, some one's railroad, as I have 
none of my own. I am dependent on some 
one for the very house I live in, as I never 
could build one of my own. 

Thus, we are enabled to see how depen- 
dent we are for food and raiment, and for 
all our bodily comforts. And yet we are de- 
Li8a 



C6e H2eto C&eologg 



pendent on each other for our intellectual 
and spiritual attainments. The little baby 
would never know anything if it was not 
taught. All we know comes from our teach- 
ing. Taking in all our environments, and all 
our advantages, we are all simply just as we 
have been taught. God gave the beasts of 
the field and the fowls of the air a perfect 
rule of faith and practice, and they are just 
as perfect as when He first made them. No 
more. No advancement. But he gave man 
a thinker; reason, power to help and de- 
velop each other. But this power to teach, 
to help each other, has something back of 
it that the other animals have not got. It 
has love back of it. God back of it; for God 
is love. It is love that prompts the mother 
to teach the child, to help the child. It is 
love that prompts each of us to do for, and 
help each other. A mother's love goes with 
us — not only through our infancy, but all 
through our lives. This love not only goes 
with us to the end of mother's life, but it 
goes to the end of each of our own lives 
and will meet us on the other shore. God 
is love. There are two personalities from 
.184 



€!>e I3eto C&eologp 



whom we cannot get away. The sooner we 
know them both, the better for us. The one 
is God. The other is Self. We cannot get 
away from God. If we ascend up to Hea- 
ven, he is there. If we make our bed in 
Hades, he is there. If we take the wings of 
the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts 
of the sea, he is there. There is no getting 
away from God. There is no getting away 
from Self. You may try it, but you will fail. 
The young man who is tired of Self and 
Home may go West, but he will find Self 
getting off the same train that he does. The 
society man or woman may try it; they may 
go to Europe, but they will find Self stopping 
at the same hotel with them. Better get 
acquainted with these two personalities. You 
will be happier. You will be satisfied with 
your helplessness and your dependence. You 
will be dependent all through this life and 
the next. We had to have help to get into 
this life, we have to have help to live all the 
way through this life, and we have to have 
help to get out of this life. We cannot even 
commit suicide without help. We must use 
some one's poison, or some one's rope, or 



C6e JOeto C&eologg 



somebody's lake — somebody's something to 
help us out of this life. A man came from 
Iowa this week to Chicago to commit suicide. 
He says he tramped the streets of Chicago 
for two days, trying to decide how to do it. 
He finally jumped off the Clark Street bridge 
into the river. But a man passing happened 
to see him, and jumped into the water, and, 
with the aid of a policeman, rescued him. 
He had no river of his own, and, in trying to 
use the Chicago River, a Chicago man would 
not allow him to use it. We must have help 
on the sick-bed, trying to die (or live, pos- 
sibly). We need some one to help us, to 
turn us in the bed, to give us a drink of 
water, to quench our thirst; to soften our 
pillow, to look into our eyes, giving assur- 
ance of love. O, we are so dependent — in 
life and in death. We cannot die, even, with- 
out help. 

Now, this help that helps comes to us all 
along our lives, from infancy to old age, 
prompted by love. "Love is the fulfilling 
of the law." Love is back of all the real 
help we get in this life and the life to come. 
Back of the mother's help, back of the fa- 
.186. 



Cfte iQeto Cfteologp 



ther's help. Back of the help of friends. 
Back of the Christ help. There never was 
so much love in the world as there is to-day. 
There never has been so many hospitals, for 
the sick in this world, as there are to-day — 
and more being built. There never were so 
many institutions for the deaf, and the blind, 
and the incurables, as there are to-day — all 
prompted by Love. There never was so 
much Teaching in the world as there is to- 
day. There never was so much gratuitous 
teaching as there is to-day. Teaching by the 
Church, teaching by the Sunday-schools, 
teaching by the various Young People's So- 
cieties, teaching by the public schools, teach- 
ing by private schools, teaching by our many 
and great universities. There never was so 
much teaching by the Spirit of Truth, the 
Holy Ghost — leading into all truth. There 
never was such a Spirit of Truth abroad in 
the land, as there is to-day. The spirit of 
truth that makes us free, and is shattering 
former idols and former beliefs. 

We are just so dependent spiritually as 
we are bodily and mentally. The new-born 
soul would die if it never got any help. It 

187. 



Cfte H3eto Cfieologp 



must have the God-Mother help. As it 
grows it needs the help of brothers and sis- 
ters, and all the helps that come to us in our 
spiritual and religious life. The help that 
comes from our environments, from the va- 
rious things that make us grow — that make 
us grow into the likeness of our Heavenly 
Father. Jesus illustrated this when he said : 
See the grass, see the lily; see how they 
grow. The lily that grows so beautiful, 
that Solomon in all his glory was not to be 
compared to it for beauty. "Wherefore if 
God so clothes the lily, the grass, which to- 
day is cast into the oven, How much more 
will he clothe you, O ye of little faith." If 
he so clothes the lily, How? By growth. 
By help from outside influences. Every lit- 
tle dew-drop makes its impress on the lily. 
Every little ray of light does its part in per- 
fecting the lily. Even the darkness has its 
part in shading and bringing out the beauti- 
ful colors in the lily. How much more will 
He clothe you spiritually? How? Just as 
He clothes the lily. By growth, by help — 
outside help. By the little silent influences 
that come to you each day. Help upon 
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Cfte iQeto Cfteologg 



which we are absolutely dependent. Help 
that will grow a character more beautiful 
than the lily. Help that will enable us to 
grow into the likeness of the Father and the 
Son, and be able to comprehend Jesus, when 
He said: "In that day ye shall know that I 
am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in 
you." 



189 



CHURCH. 



Jesus never organized a Church, or never 
gave any directions about organizing a 
Church. He never said he would organize a 
Church. He was apparently disgusted with 
the organized Jewish Church. He said to 
the officers of the Jewish Church, Matt. 23 : 
13, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, 
hypocrites: for ye shut up "righteousness 
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost against 
men; for ye neither go in yourselves, neither 
suffer ye them that are entering to go in." 
Again, "Woe unto you, scribes and Phari- 
sees (officers of the Jewish Church), hypo- 
crites: for ye compass sea and land to make 
one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make 
him two-fold more the child of hell than 
yourselves." 

Jesus did say he would build or grow a 
Church, Matt. 16:18, when Peter made 
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Cfte H3eto Cfteologp 



that wonderful confession, "Thou art the 
Christ, the Son of the living God," and 
Jesus replied, "Flesh and blood hath not re- 
vealed it unto thee, but my Father which is 
in Heaven." Then Jesus gives us the basis 
upon which he will build, or groiv, his 
Church. He then says to Peter, the spokes- 
man for his disciples, "That thou art Peter 
(Petros, a stone), and upon this rock 
(Petra) I will build my Church, and the 
gates of Hades, shall not prevail against 
it." Jesus here proposes to build, or grow, 
his Church upon this great truth, the rock 
Christ Jesus, or the confession of this truth. 
A confession made, "not by flesh and blood, 
but by the Father," through his spirit. The 
rock upon which the Church of Jesus Christ 
is being built, or grown, is the rock of Con- 
fession and profession. And nothing can 
prevail against it. The confession of the 
Christ, made through the Father, through 
the Holy Ghost, goes to the hearts of the 
most hardened sinners and brings them to 
the Christ. This is the rock upon which 
Jesus Christ is building his church, and he 
is still building. His Church is still grow- 
191 



Cfte iQeto Cfteologp 



ing and will continue to grow, until this Gos- 
pel of the Kingdom, this Gospel of Right- 
eousness and peace and joy in the Holy 
Ghost, shall be preached to all the Nations 
of the world. 

What a wonderful growth the Church of 
Jesus Christ is having. Truly it is like the 
mustard seed, in spreading its branches, 
through its growth. Like the leaven that 
the woman hid in three measures of meal, 
permeating to the innermost parts. A grow- 
ing Church. A Church being built by Jesus 
Christ. The keys given to the disciples. 
Not to the Pope. Not to the bishops. Not 
to the Elders, but to the "Petroses," the 
living, individual stones, in this building. 
The most wonderful building in the world! 
— the church of Jesus Christ. A spiritual 
building. And the keys in the hands of the 
spiritual power, men and women who can 
testify through the Holy Ghost that Jesus 
is the Christ, the Son of the living God. 
This is the power that binds in earth, and 
in heaven. All power has been given to 
this builder, to Jesus Christ, who is still 
building and growing His church. All hu- 
192 



Ci)e jQeto Cfteologg 



man organizations called churches are suc- 
cessful in their work just in proportion as 
they are in harmony with the builder. The 
Church of Jesus Christ is a growth, and the 
individual members have to grow into har- 
mony with the builder, and into the knowl- 
edge of the Father, and the Son. 

If we had an infallible church, an infal- 
lible rule of faith and practice, there would 
be no growth. Each individual church- 
member must grow. He is only a babe in 
Christ at first, but if he grows, he will 
reach the full stature of a man in Christ 
Jesus. 

In regard to the various human organiza- 
tions called churches, we think that Denom- 
inationalism is the next best thing to Con- 
gregationalism, where every church is inde- 
pendent. Jesus is using, very largely now, 
Denominationalism to build His church. 
But each individual Stone will find its place, 
and be fitted into the building by the Master 
Builder, Jesus Christ. 

Paul was a Jew, belonged to that class of 
Jews that crucified the Christ. Was among 
the chief persecutors of the followers of 

193. 



C6e H3eto Cfteologp 



Jesus, until he was converted. He probably 
never heard Jesus make the statement that 
He would build a Church in which the 
Christ, the Son of the living God, and the 
Confession of the Christ would be the rock, 
the truth upon which He would build His 
church. After his conversion he was still 
a Jew, and labored as energetically to Juda- 
ize Christianity as he had labored to destroy 
it. When Paul was converted he was only 
a babe in Christ, like the rest of us, and had 
to grow into the knowledge of the Father 
and the Son. Being a Jew, he immediately 
took up the Jewish idea of a Messiah which 
has never materialized, even to this day, 
the Jews themselves being witnesses. The 
effort to Christianize Judaism was a perfect 
failure. Individual Jews were converted, 
but not a single Jewish synagogue was ever 
brought over to Christianity. The Apostles, 
failing in this, then attempted to Judaize 
Christianity; modeling their church, the 
Apostolic church, after the Jewish church, 
or synagogue. Paul in Ephesians, Chapter 
II, in his argument in behalf of the Gen- 
tiles, claims that the Apostles and Prophets 
194 



Cfie I3eto Cfteologg 



are the foundation of the Christian Church, 
Jesus Christ only being the chief corner- 
stone. Jesus said, "upon this rock I will 
build my church." This eternal rock, this 
eternal truth, — the Son of the living God, 
the confession and profession of the Christ. 
The "Apostles and Prophets are not the 
foundation of the Church that Jesus said he 
would build, or grow. He is still building. 
The "Apostles and Prophets" were evidently 
the foundation of the church which they 
built, which has retarded the growth of the 
Christian Church, the Christ Church, for 
more than eighteen hundred years. The 
Church that Jesus said he would build, and 
is now building, has for its foundation the 
Rock of Ages, the Eternal Rock, the Eternal 
Truth. Jesus is the Truth. He says, "I 
am the way, the truth, and the life." No 
human organization can furnish a founda- 
tion for the Church of Jesus Christ. But 
these various human organizations can do 
the work of gathering in the individual spir- 
itual stones, which Jesus will use in build- 
ing His church on the rock upon which he 
said He would build. The individual spir- 



Cfte Jl3eto Cfteologp 



itual stones realize that they are part of this 
building, that they will be fitted in, each stone 
in its proper place, part of the building, — 
joined in the Father and the Son, — for "in 
that day ye shall know that I am in my 
Father, and ye in me, and I in you." 

The principal work of the various church 
organizations to-day should be teaching, 
"Go teach all nations," and Jesus has fur- 
nished the principal Teacher, — the ever- 
present Teacher, who will abide with us and 
lead us into all Truth. 

Everybody should be a member of some 
Church organization. They are all engaged 
largely in the same work, and surely it will 
not be difficult for any one to find a Church 
home in some one of them. Go in as a 
student willing to be taught, and you will 
be surprised to see how soon you will be- 
come interested in Church work and in the 
Christ, the Builder of this Church. I heard 
a man say recently that he had not been in 
a church for twenty years. I said to him, 
"I am sorry for you; I would think just as 
much of you if you had said, "I have not 
read a newspaper for twenty years." The 
196 



Cfte H3eto Cfteologg 



pulpit and the Press are the two promoters 
of public opinion. You cannot keep posted 
and neglect either. All the various church 
organizations are being led into the Truth 
as they never have been before. If you have 
not been in church for twenty years, you 
don't know how far you have fallen behind. 
You don't even know how ignorant you are, 
when you talk about the Church, and Church 
matters. If you want to keep posted, keep 
in touch with the Pulpit, and the Press. 

The work of the Church that Jesus is 
building, is growing, is simply to lead men 
into all Truth. The Press and the Pulpit 
are the great helpers in this work. When 
new truth is brought to light, to-day, as it 
is so frequently, the Press and the Pulpit are 
the first to rejoice over it. The Church that 
Jesus is building, is not like the Church 
whose "foundation was the Apostles and 
Prophets," who in the past burned men and 
women at the stake because they accepted 
and rejoiced in the Truth. The Church that 
Jesus is building is not only founded on the 
rock of Truth, but rejoices in the Truth. 
And the intelligent Press and the intelligent 



Cfte Jl2eto Cfteologg 



Pulpit rejoice with it. Every man, woman 
and child should be connected with some one 
of the various churches of to-day, and be 
willing to learn. In this day and age of the 
world, it is the man who is not willing to 
learn, that falls behind in the race of life; 
and the man who thinks he knows it all, just 
stands where he is, and fails to get there. 
Read the newspapers, and go to Church, and 
you will likely keep abreast of the times. 



19 8 



TRUTH VERSUS FALSEHOOD 



Let God be true but every man a liar. 
God is truth. Jesus is the truth. Jesus is 
the way, the truth and the life. Truth leads 
to God. Error leads away from God. 
Truth and error are opposites. If there 
was no truth, there could be no error. Lying 
is the absence of truth. Darkness is the ab- 
sence of light. Evil is the absence of good. 
There could be no evil if there was no good. 
All life is perfected by the co-operation of 
opposites, by the co-operation of good and 
evil, by the co-operation of light and dark- 
ness, joy and sorrow, truth and error. We 
are perfected by struggle, by suffering. 
When God said let us make man, he com- 
prehended the beginning and the end. He 
comprehended what man would be all down 
the ages; and he is still making man. He 
is making a better man in this century than 

199 



Cfce iQeto Cfteologg 



he has ever made, but will have a better man 
next century, and will have a better man in 
every following century until we shall be like 
Him. God made man u in secret," "in the 
lowest parts of the earth," and the secret of 
his origin is still a secret. He made him in 
the "lowest parts of the earth," in the very 
beginning of the formation of the earth. 
The very substance out of which man was 
created "was not hid from God," when he 
"was made in secret, and curiously wrought 
in the lowest parts of the earth;" in the be- 
ginning of the formation of the earth, in the 
beginning of the formation of animal life. 
In the beginning when God said let us make 
man, he saw man in the very secret of his 
origin, in the very beginning of the forma- 
tion of the substance out of which man was 
made, and in the very thought of God "all 
his members were written which in continu- 
ance, were fashioned, when as yet there was 
none of them." We are fearfully and won- 
derfully made; and the very secret of our 
origin is hid from us. Scientists have racked 
their brains to discover this secret, "the or- 
igin of the species, the origin of human life, 
200 



Cfie Jl3eto Cfieologp 



the origin of all life. God is the source of 
all life. In our search for this secret, the 
origin of the species, we stop when we trace 
it back to God. "Canst thou by searching 
find out God?" "Canst thou find out the 
Almighty to perfection?" "It is as high as 
heaven; what canst thou do? Deeper than 
hell; what canst thou know? The measure 
thereof is longer than the earth and broader 
than the sea." We might also say that the 
secret of our destiny is hid from us, that we 
only know that in the end we shall be like 
Him, for we shall then see Him as he is. 

Let God be true, but every man a liar. 
No man cometh unto the Father, but by me" 
(John 14:6), or through me or through the 
truth. I am the way, the truth and the life. 
It is only through the truth that we can come 
to God. Again, John 6:44, "No man can 
come to me, except the Father which sent me 
drawn Him." God is truth. No man can 
really come to Jesus unless he is drawn by 
the truth. It is the Holy Ghost, the Spirit 
of Truth that leads, that teaches, that abides 
with us, that brings us to God the Father. 
It is the Spirit of Truth that gives us the 
201 



Cfie I3eto Cfteologp 



consciousness that we are the children of 
God. The controversy that Jesus had with 
his disciples to convince them that he was 
"the way, the truth and the life" equal to 
God, the Father, being "in the Father, and 
the Father in him, and we in him" is re- 
corded in 14, 15 and 16 Chapters of John's 
Gospel. In this controversy Jesus refers to 
the "Spirit of Truth" three different times,, 
as the Comforter, the Leader, the Teacher, 
the Guide, that will guide us into all truth, 
into the truth that makes us free. "Let God 
be true, but every man a liar." God could 
not make man a free agent with power to 
choose between truth and error, between 
truth and falsehood, and not make a truth- 
ful man and a liar. "David in his haste said 
all men are liars." Adam, the first man, 
thought he could deceive God by hiding from 
him, and when the truth came out he blamed 
it on his wife, and Eve being truly wifely 
did not contradict him, but bore the blame 
or rather put the blame on the serpent, or 
on our tendency to go back to animal life. 
Cain, Adam's first born son, was a liar. 
After Cain had slain his brother Abel the 
202: 



Cfie H3eto Cfteologp 



"Lord said unto him, "Where is Abel thy 
brother?" And he said I know not. Am 
I my brother's keeper?" Thus lying to God 
himself. The whole tendency of the human 
race from Adam to Noah, according to the 
Mosaic account was vicious. The truth is, 
we come from a bad family, beginning with 
lying and murder, ending in the utter de- 
struction and overthrow of the entire race, 
with the exception of Noah and his family. 
This effort to make man, through the co- 
operation of good and evil, failed because of 
the preponderence of animal life over the 
God life, breathed into the animal, Adam. 
Noah and his family saved out of the wreck, 
gave a new basis upon which to build or 
make a better man. According to this rec- 
ord it took two thousand years to make 
Noah, a man that could walk with God. 
But in God's plan to make man, the evolu- 
tion was to continue. The co-operation of 
good and evil was to do better work with 
this new material. Under this process of 
evolution and development, it took the first 
thousand years from Adam to develop or 
make one man that could walk with God, — ■ 
203 



C6e H3eto Cfteologp 



Enoch. And it took a thousand years more 
to make another man who could walk with 
God, Noah, who was Enoch's great grand- 
son. Thus, according to the Mosaic record 
it took two thousand years to produce two 
men that could walk with God. But with 
the new start, with Noah and his family, dur- 
ing the next two thousand years many men 
had learned to walk and commune with God. 
But the truth of David's statement that "All 
men are liars" has not been changed. 

Abraham lied when he tried to pass his 
wife, Sarah, off as his sister. Isaac also 
lied when he tried to pass his wife Rachael 
off as his sister. Jacob was a notorious liar, 
lying to his poor, old blind father, Isaac, 
when he was stealing his father's blessing 
away from Esau ; and Rebecca, his wife, was 
also a guilty party to the deception. Jacob's 
sons also lied, deceiving Hamar and his son 
Schechem (Gen. 34, 1-30), persuading them 
to be circumcized and to be one people with 
them, and after they were circumcized, slew 
Hamar and his son and all the males of 
their city and took captive all the women and 
children and all their flocks and herds. 
204 



Cfte iReto Cfteologg 



Jacob and his sons lied for gain, and not as 
Abraham and Isaac lied, for self-protection. 
David was a gay deceiver, and why he was 
rewarded by the birth of such a son as Solo- 
mon, by Uriah's wife, after his treachery in 
securing her, cannot be understood. "Let 
God be true, but every man a liar." 

We have the record under the Christian 
dispensation of Ananias and Sophira, his 
wife, of not only lying to men, but to God, 
and no doubt but since that occasion many 
men and women have failed to surrender 
and turn over to God all that they promised 
in their consecration to the Christ and his 
Kingdom. 

Deceit and untruthfulness is part of our 
being. Even now, in this twentieth century, 
after six thousand years development toward 
God and righteousness, had I the oppor- 
tunity to address an audience of one thou- 
sand of the best men and women of this 
country and say to them if there is a man 
or woman in this audience who has never 
told a lie, please raise your hand, and there 
would be no hands go up. "All have sinned 
and come short of the glory of God. All 

20£ 



Cfie H2eto Cfteologg 



have lied. All have transgressed, and we 
wish to emphasize the truth that God could 
not make a man a free agent with power to 
lie or to tell the truth, with power to obey 
or transgress, with power to sin, and not 
make a sinner. Truth is eternal, God is 
eternal. Evil, Satan, Devil, or anything you 
wish to call it, as the opposite of God, is a 
liar, and the father of lies, the source of all 
untruth, and must eventually be overcome; 
must perish. 

"Falsehood may have its hour, but it has 
no future." — Pressense. 

"Dare to be true, nothing can ever need 
a lie." — George Herbert. 

"Truth is by its very nature intolerant, ex- 
clusive; for every truth is the denial of its 
opposing error." — Luthardt. 

"Truth crushed to earth will rise again; 
the eternal years of God are hers; but error 
wounded writhes in pain and dies amid her 
worshippers." — Bryant. 

"I am theway, the truth and the life." 

— Jesus. 

THE END. 
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